[ "Naval and Military Traditions in America" ]
This anonymous essay appeared in the June 15, 1861, edition of All the Year Round, a weekly literary and cultural magazine owned and edited by Charles Dickens.
While discussing American port cities and shipyards, the author makes the following remark about retired American naval officers:
If you want to see the old water-logged officers, fast growing senile, of America, you must not go, however, to the National
Admiralty, but to Old Point Comfort, or to the Sulphur Springs . . . . The captains also now and then turn up at the White Mountains, Lake George, Lake Minnipissiogee, or Niagara; but, after all, the sea-shore is the true lounge of "the old salt."
I have seen them on the harbour terraces at Charlestown, enjoying a sou'-west wind on their honest faces, and telling stories of how a British admiral was once beaten off by the harbour forts. Ten to one but a grandson will be swimming
a little schooner near, and trying all he can do (closely watched, though, by the family Newfoundland dog) to drown himself beyond
all hope of salvage. (V: 286)