GENTLEMENROVERS
BY
E. ALEXANDER POWELL, F.R.G.S.
AUTHOR OF "THE LAST FRONTIER," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK 1913
Copyright, 1913, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published September, 1913
To
THE FINEST GENTLEMAN I KNOW
MY FATHER
That carries no colors or crest,
But, split in a thousand detachments,
Is breaking the road for the rest.
The ocean at large was our share,
There was never a skirmish to windward
But the Leaderless Legion was there.
We skirmish ahead of the Church,
With never a gunboat to help us
When we're scuppered and left in the lurch.
But we know as the cartridges finish
And we're filed on our last little shelves,
That the Legion that never was 'listed
Will send us as good as ourselves.
To our wholly unauthorized horde—
To the line of our dusty foreloopers,
To the Gentlemen Rovers abroad!"
—The Lost Legion.
[Pg vii]
FOREWORD
This book is written as a tribute to some menwho have been overlooked by History and forgottenby Fame. Though they won for us morethan half the territory comprised within ourpresent-day borders, not only have no monumentsbeen erected to perpetuate their exploits in bronzeand marble, but they lie for the most part in forgottenand neglected graves, some of them underalien skies. Boyd, Truxtun, Eaton, Reed,Lafitte, Smith, Ide, Ward, Walker—even theirnames hold no significance for their countrymenof the present generation, yet they playedgreat parts in our national drama. After twodecades of history-making in Hindustan, Boydcame back to his own country and ably secondedWilliam Henry H