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the path, traversing sunless clefts, crawling | To be candid, silly as many of these inscriptions through holes and scaling gigantic piles of the were, they gave a human interest to the spot. formless masonry of the Deluge, reaches the Even the record of human vanity is preferable summit. Here, on a lonely rock, still stands a to the absence of any sign of man. single tower of the old robber-fortress which was destroyed in the thirteenth century by Philip of Streitberg, in revenge for the abduction of his bride by the knight of the Lugsburg.

From the tower we had fine views to the north, east, and west. The day could not have been more fortunately chosen. The air was unusually clear, and the distant villages showed with remarkable distinctness, yet a light golden shimmer was spread over the landscape, and, by contrast with the dark firs around us, it seemed like an illuminated picture painted on a transparent

canvas.

Feeling myself in tolerable condition, I went on, along the crest of the mountain, to the Burgstein, a mass of rock 100 feet high, and crowning a summit nearly 3000 feet above the sea. The top is about seven by nine feet in compass, and inclosed by a strong railing to prevent the visitor from being blown off. Hence I looked far down into the Upper Palatinate of Bavaria, away to the blue Bohemian mountains, and, to the west, on all the dark summits of the Fichtelgebirge. The villages shone white and red in the sun; the meadow-ponds were sapphires set in emerald, and the dark-purple tint of the On the side of one of the largest boulders is forests mottled the general golden-green lustre an inscription recommending those who are at of the landscape. A quarter of an hour further enmity to mount the rock and behold the land- is the Haberstein, a wonderful up-building of scape, as a certain means of reconciliation. It rock, forming a double tower, from eighty to a records the meeting of two estranged friends, hundred feet high. who first looked around them and then fell into each other's arms, without a word. This was truly German. Enemies of Anglo-Saxon blood, I am afraid, would have tried to push each other off the rock instead of allowing the scenery to reconcile them. One more inscription, the climax of sentiment, and I will cease to copy: "Nature is great, Love is divine, Longing is infinite, Dreams are rich; only the human heart is poor. And yet-fortunate is he who feels this, miserable he who does not even suspect it. Thou losest a dream and winn'st-Rest!"

On returning to Wunsiedel I did not neglect to visit Jean Paul's birth-place-a plain, substantial house, adjoining the church. Here the street forms a small court, in the centre of which, on a pedestal of granite, stands a bronze bust of the great man. The inscription is: "Wunsiedel to her Jean Paul Fr. Richter." Nothing could be simpler or more appropriate. In front, the broad street, lined with large, cheerful yellow or pink houses, stretches down the hill and closes with a vista of distant mountains. The place is very gay, clean, and attractive, notwith

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standing its humble position. Jean Paul de-ar could understand "wid'r a weng renga!" scribes it completely, when he says: "I am glad to have been born in thee, thou bright little

town!"

(wieder ein wenig Regen)—which was one of the clearest of his expressions. To beguile the rainy road he related to me the history of a band of robbers, who in the years 1845 and '46 infested the Franconian mountains, and plundered the highways on all sides.

I was aroused the next morning by the singing of a hymn, followed by the beating of a drum. Both sounds proceeded from a company of twenty or more small boys, pupils of a By this time I had the Fichtelgebirge behind school at Ebersdorf (in the Franconian Forest), me, and the view opened southward, down the who, accompanied by their teachers, were mak-valley of the Nab. The Rauhe Kulm, an isoing a tour on foot through the Fichtelgebirge. lated basaltic peak, lifted its head in the middle The sight admonished me to resume my march, of the landscape, and on the left rose the long, as I intended going southward to Kemnath, in windy ridge of the Weissenstein. Here and the Upper Palatinate. The wind blew fresh there a rocky summit was crowned with the from the southwest, and heavy black clouds fill-ruins of an ancient robber-castle. But the scene ed the sky. My road led up a valley between the twin mountain-groups, crossing a ridge which divides the waters of Europe. The forests were as black as ink under the shadows of the clouds, and the distant hills had a dark indigo color, which gave a remarkable tone to the landscape. Take a picture of Salvator Rosa and substitute blue for brown, and you may form some idea of it.

would have been frightful on canvas, it lay so bleak and rigid under the rainy sky. In two hours more I passed the boundary between Franconia and the Upper Palatinate.

Here my Franconian excursion closes. The next day I reached Arnberg, on the Eastern Bavarian Railway, having accomplished about a hundred miles on foot, to the manifest improvement of one knee at the expense of the other. Presently the rain came, at first in scattering But I had, in addition, a store of cheerful and drops, but soon in a driving shower. My guide, refreshing experiences, and my confidence in to keep up my spirits, talked on and on in the the Walking-Cure is so little shaken that I broad Frankish dialect, which I could only com- propose trying a second experiment in the Boprehend by keeping all my faculties on a pain-hemian Forest-a region still less known to the ful stretch. "Down in the Palatinate," said tourist, if possible, than the Franconian Switzhe, "the people speak a very difficult language. erland. Whether I do this or not, will depend They cut off all the words, and bring out the upon the news which I receive from home. If pieces very fast." This was precisely what he the war continues in America, I shall not tarry himself did! For instance, what German schol-in Europe.

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WHILE prosecuting the siege of Boston,

In December, 1775, the Congress issued several naval commissions, and determined the rank of officers, in their relations to grades in the military service; such as Admiral to be equal to a General on land, a Commodore to a BrigadierGeneral, etc.

Esek Hopkins, of Rhode Island, was appointed Senior Captain; and John Paul Jones, of Scotland, then a resident of Virginia, was made Senior Lieutenant. Such was the germ of the United States Navy.

during the summer and autumn of 1775, Washington caused five or six armed vessels to be fitted out, and sent them to cruise as privateers on the New England coast, where British vessels had been depredating since the beginning of hostilities at Lexington and Concord, in April of that year. On the 13th of October the Continental Congress resolved to fit out two vessels of war, to cruise off the same coast, for the purpose of intercepting British transports. On the same While the regular navy was active and effiday Silas Deane of Connecticut, John Langdon cient during the war, its operations were limitof New Hampshire, and Christopher Gadsden of ed, in comparison with those of the numerous South Carolina, were appointed a committee to privateers that swarmed along the coast. The direct naval affairs. Within two months after- regular navy for a long time was employed chiefward the Congress had authorized the construc- ly in the interception of British transports, and tion and fitting out of fifteen more vessels; and its principal theatre of operations was off the the Marine Committee" was enlarged so as to New England coast. The privateers, meancomprise one delegate from each colony. Several while, roamed the seas in every direction. Acmodifications of this committee were made dur-cording to the best authorities, these cruisers ing the war. In November, 1776, a Continental Navy Board was appointed to assist the Marine Committee; and in October, 1779, a Board of Admiralty was established. Its clerk held the relative position of the Secretary of the Navy at the present day. There was no change until 1781, when Robert Morris, the patriotic financier of the Revolution, who sent out many privateers on his own account, was appointed Agent of Marine.

The engravings which illustrate this paper are from LOSSING's Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812, now in preparation, and to be published by Harper and Brothers.

captured, during the war, eight hundred and
three British vessels, with merchandise valued
at more than eleven millions of dollars. The
British vessels in the West Indies suffered terri-
bly from these privateers. Of a fleet of sixty
merchantmen that left Ireland for those waters,
thirty-five were captured by American cruisers.
The West India trade with Africa was almost de-
stroyed by them. At the beginning of the war
this number had dwindled to forty in 1777.
two hundred ships were employed in that trade:

The Congress fitted out forty-two vessels dur

ing the war. Nearly all of them, with some smaller craft on the ocean and on Lake Champlain, fell into the hands of more powerful and more numerous foes. In the autumn of 1782 the maritime service of the United States was closed. At that time only two frigates of the American marine were left. When the sun of peace arose, after a dark night of tempest for seven years, the navy of the United States, like its army, disappeared as a mist of the morning, leaving nothing behind it but the recollections of its sufferings and its glories.

Let us take a very brief glance at the most important operations of the American marine during the Revolution.

ESEK HOPKINS.

In February, 1776, Commodore Hopkins was ordered to operate against Lord Dunmore and his amphibious marauders in the Virginia waters. The ambitious commander pushed on to the Bahama Islands, captured a hundred cannon and a quantity of stores at Nassau, New Providence, and bore away with these to New England the governor of the island. On his way Hopkins captured some prizes. He performed essential services, but because of his disobedience of orders he was dismissed from the navy.

Jones cruised off the coast between Boston and the Delaware, sometimes stretching away to the Bermudas. He once carried fifteen prizes into Newport. Whipple and Biddle, who cruised eastward as far as Nova Scotia, were both successful. The little Doria, commanded by the latter, took so many prizes, that when she entered the Delaware River with them she had only five of her original crew, the remainder being distributed among the captured vessels.

In the autumn of 1776 Dr. Franklin went to France as diplomatic agent for the United States. He took with him blank commissions for army and navy officers, and was permitted by the King to fit out cruisers in French ports. The vessel that carried him to Europe (the Re

prisal) was a most active cruiser; and during the following summer she and two others sailed entirely around Ireland, sweeping the Channel in its whole breadth, and capturing and destroying a great number of merchant vessels. Other cruisers afterward sailed from the French coast, and produced general alarm among the British islands. Marine insurance arose as high as twenty-five per cent.; and so loth were British merchants to ship goods in English bottoms, that at one time forty French vessels were together loading in the Thames. The American cruisers, on their own coasts and adjacent seas, were very active meanwhile. They captured, during the year 1776, no less than three hundred and forty-two British vessels.

In the spring of 1778 John Paul Jones first appeared in the British waters. He swept through the Irish Channel with destructive energy and unheard-of boldness. He fell upon Whitehaven, on the coast of England, seized the fort, spiked the guns, and set fire to a ship in the midst of a hundred other vessels, and departed. His exploits spread terror along the English coast. These were followed another year by equally brave performances with a little squadron fitted out in the harbor of L'Orient. Jones's cruiser was the Bonhomme Richard. Off Flamborough Head, on the east coast of Scotland, he encountered two British vessels, the Serapis and Countess of Scarborough, in convoy of the Baltic merchant fleet. The battle, fought in the evening, was a desperate one. The Richard and Serapis closed, their rigging intermingling. In this position they poured broadsides into each other. Three times both ships were on fire, and their destruction appeared inevitable. A part of the time the belligerents were fighting hand to hand on the decks. When the contest was ended, and the victory remained with Jones, the Richard was a perfect wreck and fast sinking. Sixteen hours afterward she went down into the deep waters of the North Sea, off Bridlington Bay. The Continental Congress voted special thanks to Jones; and eight years afterward the Government of the United States presented him a gold medal, appropriately illustrated and described.*

During the preceding summer the American cruisers had been very successful on their own coasts. The estimated value of only eight prizes taken into Boston was over a million of dollars; and at the close of that year the names of Manly, M'Neil, Biddle, Hinman, Conyngham, Wickes, Nicholson, Rathburne, Hacker, Whipple, Barry,

John Paul, who for some reason added the name of Jones to his own, was born in July, 1747, at Arbigland, on the Frith of Solway, Scotland. At the age of twelve years he was apprenticed to a shipmaster in the Virginia trade. He was on a slaver for some years, became Master Commander, and in 1773 settled in Virginia, and added Jones to his name. but returned in 1787. The following year he was appointed Rear-Admiral in the Russian navy. At one time he was in command against the Turks. In 1789 he retired to Paris on a pension. This he enjoyed until his death in

At the close of the war he went to France,

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sketch of Jones's career, in detail. and a portrait of him, 1792. The place of his sepulture is unknown. For a see Harper's Magazine for July, 1855.

Dale, Talbot, Jones, and others were spoken with pride by every patriotic American. Barney, afterward a gallant officer in the war of 1812-15, was a lieutenant, and greatly distinguished himself, in the summer of 1780, by his services in action on board of the Saratoga, in the capture of a ship and two brigs. He boarded one of the latter at the head of fifty men, and 100k all her crew prisoners.

The war was now drawing to a close. Cornwallis had been defeated, and his whole army captured in Virginia, by the American and French forces. This was followed a few months 'ater by a brilliant naval exploit, which closed the operations of that branch of the service. The State of Pennsylvania had fitted out a vessel, called the Hyder Ally, armed with sixteen 6-pounders, and manned by over a hundred men. Her chief duty was to expel British privateers from Delaware Bay. She was anchored off Cape May, with a number of merchant ships, in April, 1782, when two armed vessels appeared. The merchantmen fled up the Delaware, while the Hyder Ally engaged in a desperate contest with a superior foe, the General Monk. They sought within pistol-shot for half an hour, when the Monk struck her colors. "This action," says Cooper, "has been justly deemed the most brilliant that ever occurred under the American flag." The Hyder Ally was commanded by the gallant Lieutenant Barney.*

JOSHUA BARNEY.

The finances of the United States were in a wretched condition at the close of the war, and a navy could not have been sustained had there been a necessity for one. Peace brought a meas

Joshua Barney was a native of Maryland. He was born in Baltimore in July, 1752. His life was spent on the e. He was mate of a vessel at the age of fourteen years, and at sixteen he was commander. He entered the United States Navy as Lieutenant in the summer of 1776, and was the first to unfurl the American flag in Maryland. He was very active during the war, and brought the first VOL. XXIV.-No. 140-L

ure of security, but not great prosperity. There was scarcely any commerce, only a limited internal trade, and few manufactures. The country was burdened with a heavy domestic and foreign debt; and the central Government, which had worked efficiently during the war, when common dangers and common interests bound the States in close alliance, now found itself almost powerless. It could not enforce the collection of taxes, nor perform any of the functions of sovereignty. The Articles of Confederation, that formed the organic law of the republic, acknowledged the independent sovereignty of the separate States. They were only a league of thirteen commonwealths, each having, in a degree, antagonistic interests. Each State had its own custom-house, levied its own duties, and assessed and collected its own taxes. Some of them kept small armed vessels as coast-guards and to enforce the revenue laws; and each was left free to establish its own trade policy.

The wise men of the day perceived that the new republic was fast drifting toward anarchy and ruin. The exercise of independent State sovereignty was a powerful element of dissolution, and formed a most treacherous foundation for the beautiful fabric of free government which the fathers, in theory, had established. They were impressed with the conviction that the people of the United States, under their loose system of government, did not form a nation, and they at once adopted measures for remedying the defect. In representative convention assembled, they formed the National Constitution. The people ratified it; and by that act they dissolved the flimsy league and formed a consolidated nation. The States were made subservient to the General Government, and a power was created, tangible and wonderful, that commanded the respect of the civilized world.

American commerce grew rapidly under the new order of things, and American ships were soon seen in distant seas. As early as 1785 an Albany sloop of eighty tons had made a voyage to China; and in 1787 the old frigate Alliance, converted into a merchantman, had sailed to Canton and back. The successes of these vessels tempted others from the American coast, and very soon they were floating upon the Mediterranean Sea. On the southern shores of that sea sat the pirate Dey of Algiers, watching with eager eyes for the vessels of the new-born nation, who, he had learned, had no navy to defend its commerce. Very soon his corsairs seized merchantmen from Boston and Philadelphia, and consigned their officers and crews to slavery. President Washington called the attention of Congress to the subject, and a commissioner was appointed to treat with the Dey of Algiers for their release and a cessation of his piratical pracnews of peace. He was one of the six Commanders appointed in 1794, and bore the American flag to the French National Convention. He entered the French naval serv ice in command of two frigates. He returned to America in 1802, and in 1812 re-enter d the naval service of the United States. He died at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in December, 1818.

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