Excerpt from An Oration: Delivered at Vallejo, July IV, 1867

On the placid bosom of San Francisco Bay gently rocks at anchor a plague-stricken ship, whose cabin and decks have lately witnessed scenes of anguish, tribulation, and death, that appall the stoutest heart, and blanch the manliest cheek. As the frigate Jamestown, on her mission of mercy, reposed on the sunny waters of Panama, Grim Pestilence invaded her dark hull, and, without authority of a commission, assumed supreme command, issuing imperious orders with more than martial rigor.

Descending to the orlop deck he grappled bluff sailors and marines, and straightway the shriek of agony, the ravings of delirium and the rattle of death resounded through the fated vessel. Stalwart men, impotent to cope with their merciless adversary, succumbed beneath his ponderous strokes, and were reverently borne by sorrowing comrades to lonely graves by the shore of the resonant sea.

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