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Show Britain's Flag Was Saluted How President Arthur and James G. Blaine Performed an Act of Courtesy Cour-tesy at the Yorktown Centennial Centen-nial Celebration. When the late William Henry Hunt, secretary of the navy under Garfield and Arthur, was on the eve of sailing, in 1S82, for St. Petersburg, to take up his new duties as our minister to Russia, Rus-sia, I had a chat with him, during the course of which he spoke of the many pleasant experiences he had had as a cabinet officer. "But the one incident that 1 shall always remember with the greatest pleasure," said the judge, "centers around the salute that was fired for the British flag at the Yorktown centennial cen-tennial celebration last year. You may recall that at the height of that celebration of the anniversary of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, the flag against which the colonists had fought was given the national salute. Well here is the inside story of that unusual un-usual and, I may say, historic Incident. "Robert C. Winthrop, formerly speaker of the lower house of congress, con-gress, delivered the oration on the Yorktown field. A very distinguished group sat upon the platform. President Presi-dent Arthur and all the members of his cabinet were there. Sir Edward Thornton, at that time minister from Great Britain to this country, was also present, and he entered with large sympathy and appreciation into the spirit of the day, notwithstanding the fact that it was the celebration of the final defeat of Britain's plans to hold on to the colonies. At one point in his oration, Mr. Winthrop painted so vivid a picture of the American attack, at-tack, led by Alexander Hamilton, upon up-on Lord Cornwallis's earthworks, the remnants of which were visible from where we sat, that Sir Edward himself him-self actually led the demonstration of applause that followed. "Close by Sir Edward sat William B. Clyde, the creator of an Important coastwise steamship company ber.ring his name. Noticing the British minister's minis-ter's enthusiasm, he took from his pocket a little pad of paper and scribbled scrib-bled upon a sheet these words: 'Wouldn't it be well, at the conclusion of these exercises, to salute the Brit ish flag? It would be a compliment to Sir Edward Thornton.' Then he passed pass-ed the slip along to James G. Blaine secretary of state. "Glancing at the message, Mr. Blaine began fumbling in his pockets. At last he produced a letter and tore off 1 the back of the envelope. Finding no pencil, he turned to me, and I gave him a stub so short that he had difficulty diffi-culty in holding it in his fingers. Yet, within a few seconds, he had written as follows on that soiled scran- 'Tn view of the warm friendship maintained maintain-ed for many years between the mother moth-er country and the United States, and also in view of the tender sympathy shown by Queen Victoria for the American Amer-ican people and the family of President Presi-dent Garfield at the time of his mortal mor-tal illness, and in the hope and con-fldence con-fldence that the cordial relations now existing may be forever maintained between the mother country and our own, it is hereby ordered that at the conclusion of these exercises the Brit-ish Brit-ish flag be unfurled upon the masts of the American navy here present, that It also be raised upon the flagstaff of the color line of the parade, and thnt a salute of twenty-one guns be fired ' "This order Blaine passed on to President Arthur. He read It, smiled approvingly, borrowed my stub of a pencil from Blaine, signed it, and passed it back to Blaine for his signature signa-ture as secretary of state. Then the order was passed to me, and in quick succession to Robert T. Lincoln and we two, as secretary of the navy and secretary of war, respectively, gave the necessary orders for its fulfillment "With this salute of the flaT ,f our old-time enemy the anniversary cele bratlon of Cornwallis's surrender act ually ended, and the public has never known how this salute came about- nu hcl 01 courtesy which, we after wards learned, was most cordially appreciated ap-preciated by Queen Victoria, and winch was all due to Blaine's quickness quick-ness to take a hint. "I have often wondered what be came of the order for the salute For fwMl,n?.1 lmder the lraPresslon that Mr. Lincoln had kept it, but later he told me that he had not It was probably the most curious presidential order ever Issued, and, had It been preserved, would now be looked upon as a historical curiosity " (Copyright, 1910, by B. J. Edward.) |