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
