to the South side of the Potomac, there to renew to Fatherland those vows of fealty, service, and devotion! which the State of Virginia had permitted me to pledge to the Federal Union so long only as, by serving it, I might serve her.
Thus my sword has been tendered to her cause, and the tender has been accepted. Her soil is invaded, the enemy is actually at her gates; and here I am contending, as the fathers of the Republic did, for the right of self-government, and those very principles for the maintenance of which Washington fought when this, his native State, was a colony of Great Britain. The path of duty and of honour is therefore plain.
By following it with the devotion and loyalty of a true sailor, I shall, I am persuaded, have the glorious and proud recompense that is contained in the "well done" of the Grand Admiral of Russia and his noble companions-in-arms.
When the invader is expelled, and as soon thereafter as the State will grant me leave, I promise myself the pleasure of a trip across the Atlantic, and shall hasten to Russia, that I may there in person, on the banks of the Neva, have the honour and the pleasure of expressing to her Grand Admiral the sentiments of respect and esteem with which his oft-repeated acts of kindness, and the generous encouragement that he has afforded me in the pursuits of science, have inspired his
M. F. Maury, Commander C. S. Navy,
| To H. I. H. The Grand Duke Constantine, | |
| Grand Admiral of Russia, | |
| St. Petersburg. |
He also declined a similar invitation from France,[1] because Virginia wanted him. These letters were brought to Richmond, under a flag of truce, by the Russian Minister, Baron Stacle; and the French Minister, accompanied by the Prussian Envoy, Baron Gerolt, who came, they said, in person
- ↑ This letter has been lost.
