Page:The Wreck of a World - Grove - 1890.djvu/123

Rh them on board the ships, with orders to put them in condition so far as they were able, to load the guns, and clear the decks as for an engagement. I also got together a few engineers and a posse of fellows to act as stokers, and instructed them to light the engine fires and get up steam with all speed. I supplemented my scratch crews with a number of young men and lads whom I placed under the orders of the old sailors, with instructions to do exactly what they were bidden, and nothing else. With all this I could not but look on the prospect of a battle with the gravest fears. Ought I not rather to abandon all resistance, which must almost certainly result in disaster, and take to flight with the whole populace? But then I was not yet certain that these vessels did belong to the enemy,—and again there was a chance, however poor, that Dana might return from his cruise before we were destroyed. So with the feeling that I had to make a choice of evils I proceeded with my preparations. Slight as they were, and inevitable as was the ruin if we should engage with a superior force of the enemy, these preparations saved the state. From which I draw the moral that even in desperate cases it is always