While in Brest, shortly after the ship was placed in commission, and before she sailed on her maiden voyage under the Red, White and Blue ensign, Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, visited the ship and made an address to the ship's company. He expressed himself as being sorry that he could not make the first trip with the new and all-American crew of one of the world's greatest vessels. "It is up to us (the Navy) to get the soldier boys home, and then we will go home ourselves," said the Secretary. Transcriber's note: The following corrections have been made: "runs from Hambrug to New York" -> Hamburg "Ensign in 1890" -> Ensign, in 1890 "is 1,000 offiicers" -> officers "Santa Domincan" -> Santa Dominican "be it reembered" -> remembered "packet, We'll" -> we'll "militarism and autrocracy" -> autocracy "since the the armistice" -> superfluous "the" removed "import-and departments" -> important Spacing after punctuation standardized, inconsistent hyphenation and archaic spelling retained. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Brief History of the U. S. S. Imperator, one of the two Largest Ships in the U. S. Navy., by Anonymous