Secretary of the Navy.

It was an act of Congress that determined that the career of
McGiffin should be that of a soldier of fortune. This was a most
unjust act, which provided that only as many midshipmen should
receive commissions as on the warships there were actual
vacancies. In those days, in 1884, our navy was very small. To-day
there is hardly a ship having her full complement of officers, and
the difficulty is not to get rid of those we have educated, but to get
officers to educate. To the many boys who, on the promise that
they would be officers of the navy, had worked for four years at
the Academy and served two years at sea, the act was most unfair.
Out of a class of about ninety, only the first twelve were given
commissions and the remaining eighty turned adrift upon the
uncertain seas of civil life. As a sop, each was given one thousand
dollars.

McGiffin was not one of the chosen twelve. In the final
examinations on the list he was well toward the tail. But without
having studied many things, and without remembering the greater
part of them, no one graduates from Annapolis, even last on the
list; and with his one thousand dollars in cash, McGiffin had also
this six years of education at what was then the best naval college
in the world. This was his only asset--his education--and as in his
own country it was impossible to dispose of it, for possible
purchasers he looked abroad.

At that time the Tong King war was on between France and China,
and he decided, before it grew rusty, to offer his knowledge to the
followers of the Yellow Dragon. In those days that was a hazard of