er the
authority of the provisions of the seventh section of the Act of
the Congress of the United States, approved June 20, 1874, for
the extreme and heroic daring manifested by you in the rescue,
under circumstances of peculiar danger and difficulty, of
seventeen persons from the wreck of the American ship "Ellen
Southard," on the 27th of September, 1875, at the mouth of the
river Mersey, near Liverpool.

It is the first time this nation has had an opportunity to offer
to other than its own citizens the medal of the life-saving
service, and it is a matter of congratulation that the occasion
is more than worthy of the token. No words, it is felt, can do
justice to the conduct of the men of the Liverpool life-boat upon
the scene of the wreck of the "Ellen Southard," and the fatal
disaster which followed the rescue, whereby nine persons
belonging to the ship and three of your gallant comrades
perished, while it saddens the glory of the deliverance, yet
throws into bolder relief the noble courage of the life-boat crew
by disclosing the dreadful hazards they dared to encounter. Upon
you, as upon each of the survivors, it is my privilege to bestow,
in behalf of the United States, this medal, provided by law in
grateful recognition of such deeds, and I beg you will accept it
with this expression of the appreciation of the gallant conduct
it commemorates.

I have the honor to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
Charles F. CONANT,
_Acting Secretary of the Treasury_.

_____

To Treasury Department, Office of the Secretary, (p. 444)
Mr. John DEAN,[132] Washington, D. C., March 3, 1877
Member of the crew of the Life-Boat
of the Royal National Life-Boat Institution
at New Brighton, England.

[Footnote 132: Similar letters of the same date
were sent to E. Crabtree, Charles Eddington,
William Griffith, James Godfrey, W. Jones, James
Duncan, James Harvey, Robert Lucas, Thomas Maloney,
Charles McKenzie, John Powell, John Robinson, R. J.
Thomas, and Henry Williams.]

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith a life-saving medal of