Now a special word to the officers. Captain Arnold, as a boy you witnessed a great fight of the “Merrimac” when she came out to Hampton Roads, sank the “Congress” and the “Cumberland,” and the next day met her match in the “Monitor.” That was a fight fraught with great honor for our people. The “Cumberland” sank with her flags flying and her guns firing while her decks were awash, and as the water was shallow, her flag still floated from the mast above them after she had gone down. The captain of the “Congress” met his death in the fight, winning an epitaph which deserves to be remembered forever in the American Navy. His name was Joe Smith, and his father, an old naval officer, was in Washington. When word was brought to him that his son’s ship had surrendered, he answered simply: “Then Joe is dead.” To have earned the right to have his death assumed as a matter of course in such conditions is of itself enough to crown any life, and every American officer should keep ever before him all that is implied therein. Let each of you officers remember, in the event of war, that while a surrender must always be justifiable, yet that a surrender must always be explained, while it is never necessary to explain the fact that you don’t surrender, no matter what the conditions may be. A tragedy occurred this morning. A man was lost from the “Colorado.” Such cases are from time to time inevitable in a service like ours. Under such circumstances, everything must always be done, as in this instance everything was done, for the rescue of the man. But you men are fitted for fighting because you have the fighting edge. This means that you are willing at all times to face death in the performance of your duty. The man who died this morning was an excellent seaman who had done his duty faithfully and who died in the performance of that duty. Therefore he died in the service of his country exactly as much as if he had died in battle, and deserves as much honor. What I have said so far applies to the whole Navy. Now a word especially to this squadron and to this ship. No other nation can boast of a better squadron, a squadron composed of more formidable vessels. In the matter of the officers and men, we have no cause to shrink from comparison with any other nation. So far, the “Colorado” has been the one ship that has had the chance to show what she could do in gunnery practice, and her record has been so astonishingly good that the other ships of the squadron will have to do their level best if they expect even to equal it. I need not tell you to remember that battles are decided by gunfire, and that the only shots that count are the shots that hit. Men, I am glad to have seen you, and I don’t think that anywhere under our flag there could be found a better set of clean-cut, vigorous, self-respecting American citizens of the very type that makes one proudest to be an American.