PREFACE.
On joining the United States frigate Congress, fitting for sea, at Norfolk, and destined to the Pacific, I commenced a journal, in which I sketched down the incidents of each day, as they occurred. It was more a whim of the hour, than any purpose connected with the public press. It was a diverting experiment on the monotony of a sea-life; was continued because it had been begun—and the present volume is the result. The streamlet flows from gathered drops.
I send it to the press as it was written, except the division into chapters, which has been made at the suggestion of the publishers, who perhaps, think the yarn will reel better if the thread be broken. It undoubtedly contains passages which may seem light and irrelevant; but a diary has privileges, in this respect, which are not extended to compositions of a graver character. He who gathers what the chance wind may shake from the trees of his garden, will find some leaves as well as fruit in his basket; and he may find there the nest of some insect that has a sting in it, but this he has no right to send to market. He may send the leaves—perhaps their sear hues may set off the bloom of his fruit, as a wrinkle the rouge through which age sometimes seeks to blush back again into youth.
The members of Congress are responsible for any typographical errors which the volume may contain, for they so lumbered the mails, between Washington—where the proofs were sent—and New York, with their speeches, that my publishers had about as little chance of getting a corrected copy through this travelling Babel, as they would have had in finding a righteous man in Sodom after Lot had left. I know it seems cruel to roll the responsibility of blunders on a body of men who have errors enough of their own to answer for. But the evil one himself is held accountable for the sins of half the world.
Having thus conveniently disposed of all responsibility, I leave my Deck and Port to the wave and strand, where they belong. Wreckers will receive no salvage from me—they must make the most of the floating planks. I only ask them not to scuttle the craft before she strikes.
The incidents which connected the officers of the Pacific Squadron and of the army, and many other prominent persons, with public events in California, are not reached by the Diary of this volume; they fall within the three years which are reserved for another work, entitled “Three Years in California.”