t still preserved the liveliest interest in the fate of the action;
and the joy visible in his countenance as often as the hurrahs of the
crew announced that an enemy had struck, testified how near his heart,
even in the agonies of death, was the accomplishment of the great work
to which his life had been devoted. He lived to know that his victory
was complete and glorious, and expired tranquilly at half-past four.
His last words were, "Thank God, I have done my duty."

He had indeed done his duty, and completed his task; for thenceforth
no hostile fleet presumed to contest the dominion of the sea. It may
seem mournful that he did not survive to enjoy the thanks and honors
with which a grateful country would have rejoiced to recompense this
crowning triumph. But he had reached the pinnacle of fame; and his
death in the hour of victory has tended far more than a few years of
peaceful life, to keep alive his memory in the hearts of a people
which loved, and a navy which adored him.

ISRAEL PUTNAM

(1718-1790)

[Illustration: Men searching in rocks. [TN]]

Israel Putnam, the redoubtable hero of Indian and French adventure in
the old colonial wars, the survivor of many a revolutionary fight, was
born at Salem, Mass., January 7, 1718. His grandfather, from the south
of England, was one of the first settlers of the place. The boy was
brought up with his father on the farm. He had little education in
literature; much in the development of a hardy, vigorous constitution,
in his contest with the soil and the actual world about him. He was
fond of athletic exercises, an adept in running and wrestling, in
which he proved himself more than a match for his village companions.
The story is told of his being insulted for his rusticity, on his
first visit to Boston, by a youth of twice his size, when he taught
the citizen better manners by a sound flogging.

Before he was of age, he was married to the daughter of John Pope, of
Salem, and presently removed with his wife to a farm in the town of
Pomfret, in Eastern Connecticut. His rugged powers were, no doubt,
sufficiently taxed in the ordinary labors of the field. In those days
the farmer had enemies to encounter, which have since vanished from
the land.

The well-known fable of AEsop, of the boy and the wolf, had then a
literal application. Every child in the days of our fathers knew the
story of Putnam, and the she-wolf which he dragged from its den. This
and similar