so that the three masts stand slantwise; the rigging looks quite
unimpaired, except that a few ropes dangle loosely from the yards. The
flag (which never was struck, thank Heaven!) is entirely hidden under
the waters of the bay, but is still doubtless waving in its old place,
although it floats to and fro with the swell and reflux of the tide,
instead of rustling on the breeze. A remnant of the dead crew still man
the sunken ship, and sometimes a drowned body floats up to the surface.

That was a noble fight. When was ever a better word spoken than that of
Commodore Smith, the father of the commander of the Congress, when he
heard that his son's ship was surrendered? "Then Joe's dead!" said he;
and so it proved. Nor can any warrior be more certain of enduring
renown than the gallant Morris, who fought so well the final battle of
the old system of naval warfare, and won glory for his country and
himself out of inevitable disaster and defeat. That last gun from the
Cumberland, when her deck was half submerged, sounded the requiem of
many sinking ships. Then went down all the navies of Europe, and our
own, Old Ironsides and all, and Trafalgar and a thousand other fights
became only a memory, never to be acted over again; and thus our brave
countrymen come last in the long procession of heroic sailors that
includes Blake and Nelson, and so many mariners of England, and other
mariners as brave as they, whose renown is our native inheritance.
There will be other battles, but no more such tests of seamanship and
manhood as the battles of the past; and, moreover, the Millennium is
certainly approaching, because human strife is to be transferred from
the heart and personality of man into cunning contrivances of
machinery, which by-and-by will fight out our wars with only the clank
and smash of iron, strewing the field with broken engines, but damaging
nobody's little finger except by accident. Such is obviously the
tendency of modern improvement. But, in the mean while, so long as