The Romance of war.
--
How Captain Wilkes got even with John Bull.--The
Brooklyn (N. Y.)
Times is responsible for the following:
‘
Captain Wilkes, the bold and responsibility-assuming commander of the
San Jacinto, who caused a gun to be fired across the bows of the British steamer
Trent, brought her to, and relieved her of
Messrs. Mason and
Slidell, and their
Secretaries, is now about 56 years of age. Consequently, as Jack Bunsby would say, he was once younger than he is now. Though every inch a sailor, and not often given to the melting mood, the blind god once succeeded in sending one of his shafts clear through his rough son' sweater, which found a lodgment in his honest heart.
The bow from which the shaft was aped hung in the eyes of a fair girl, and straightway the jolly tar fell head over ears in love.
He prosecuted his suit with vigor.
The girl was "a lass who loved a sailor," and so smiled upon him, and consented to become his wife.
But the young sailor had a rival in the son of a respectable tallow chandler, well to do, called Sildell; and young
Slidell feeling considerably cut up by being cut out, refused to accept "the mitten," but not having spunk enough to throw down the glove to his sailor rival, contented himself with "poisoning" the mind of the "stern parent" of the fair one, until he refused his consent to his daughter's marriage with the bold
Chas. Wilkes, and insisted upon her giving her hand to young
Slidell; when, after many protestatations, and the customary amount of tears and hysterics, she did, and became
Mrs. John Slidell.
The bold
Charlie Wilkes did not peak and pine, or let his melancholy feed on his weather-beaten cheeks, but went to sea and smothered his grief in attending to duty and sustaining the honor of his nation's flag, never seeing his "lady lass" again, nor meeting his successful rival for her hand and heart, until he saw him standing a prisoner on board his ship, a traitor to his country, and a rebel against the flag the honest tar had spent his life in defending.
Such is the romance of war. We congratulate the bold
Charles upon having at last "got more than even."
’
