Memoirs of John Adams Dix; comp. by his son, Morgan Dix.

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MEMOIRS OF JOHN ADAMS DIX.

weeks and sail for New York, reporting yourself on arrival to the collector of the port. While making your preparations for sailing you will
exercise the utmost vigilance in guarding your vessel against attack
from any quarter. If any hostile movement should be made against
you, you will defend yourself to the last extremity. The national flag
must not be dishonored. If you are in danger of being overpowered by
superior numbers, you will put to sea and proceed to Key West to provision; or if intercepted so that you cannot go to sea, and are unable to
keep possession of your vessel, you will run her ashore, and if possible
blow her up, so that she may not be used against the United States.
"I am, very respectfully, JOHN A. DIX,
" Secretary of the Treasury.
" Captain J. J. MORRISON,
"Commanding revenue-cutter Henry Dodge, Galveston, Texas."
"It was the determination of this Department to adopt such measures
as to prevent, if possible, the revenue-vessels, for which it was responsible, from being taken by force, and used for the purpose of overthrowing
the public authority. Any attempt to gain possession of them by military coercion could not be regarded in any other light than as an act of
war, proper to be resisted by force of arms; and it was deemed far more
creditable to the country that they should be blown into fragments than
that they should be pusillanimously or treacherously surrendered and
employed against the government which they were constructed and
commissioned to support.
"At the last accounts the -Dodge, in consequence of her unfitness to
proceed to New York, was to be placed at the disposal of the Coast
Survey in the vicinity of Galveston for temporary service, in case of any
hostile demonstration against her. Captain Morrison, who was ordered
to take charge of her before his fidelity to the government was questioned, having been dismissed from the service, the command has devolved
on Lieutenant William F. Rogers, in whose good faith and firmness
entire confidence is reposed.
" It only remains to state, under this branch of the inquiries addressed
to this Department, that Captain John G. Breshwood and Lieutenants
S. B. Caldwell and Thomas D. Fister, who voluntarily surrendered the
revenue-cutter Robert McClelland to the State of Louisiana, have been
dismissed from the Revenue Service.
"I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
"JOHN A. DIX,
" Secretary of the Treasury.
"Hon. WM. PENNINGTON,
"Speaker of the House of Representatives."