of Lake Erie was true; that
it was impartial"; and that his critics' "review was untrue, not
impartial"; and that they "should publish this decision in New York,
Washington, and Albany papers." Later Commodore Elliott presented Cooper
with a bronze medal for this able and disinterested "defense of his
brother-sailor."

[Illustration: JESSE D. ELLIOTT'S LAKE ERIE MEDAL.]

[Illustration: MEDAL GIVEN TO JAMES FENIMORE COOPER BY JESSE D.
ELLIOTT.]

Professor Lounsbury's summary of Cooper's "Naval History" is: "It is
safe to say, that for the period which it covers it is little likely to
be superseded as the standard history of the American navy. Later
investigation may show some of the author's assertions to be erroneous.
Some of his conclusions may turn out as mistaken as have his prophecies
about the use of steam in war vessels. But such defects, assuming that
they exist, are more than counterbalanced by advantages which make it a
final authority on points that can never again be so fully considered.
Many sources of information which were then accessible no longer exist.
The men who shared in the scenes described, and who communicated
information directly to Cooper, have all passed away. These are losses
that can never be replaced, even were it reasonable to expect that the
same practical knowledge, the same judicial spirit and the same power of
graphic description could be found united again in the same person."
Most amusing was Cooper's own story of a disputing man who being told:
"Why, that is as plain as two and two make four," replied: "But I
dispute that too, for two and two make twenty-two."

Cooper called the Mediterranean, its shores and countries, "a sort of a
world apart, that is replete with charms which not only fascinate the
beholder, but linger in the memories of the absent like visions of a
glorious past." And so his cruise in 1830, in the _Bella Genovese_,
entered into the pages of "Wing-and-Wing." The idea was to bring
together sailors of all nations--English, French, Italian, and
Yankee--on the Mediterranean and aboard a French water-craft of peculiar
Italian rig--the lateen sail. These sails spread like the great white
wings of birds, and the craft glides among the islands and hovers about
every gulf and bay and rocky coast of that beautiful sea. Under her
dashing young French captain, Raoul Yvard, _Le Fen Follet_
(Jack-o'-Lantern or fire-fly, as you will) glides like a water-sprite
here, there,