A Fearless Witness

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Robley D. Evans will scarcely go down in fame as a diplomat; but in all his stirring career, remarks the New York Sun, he never rendered a greater service to this country than during that trying time in the harbor of Valparaiso when his little gunboat, the Yorktown, was the sole representative of our naval power in Chilean waters. Insult after insult was coolly heaped upon the young captain’s hot-tempered head, and diplomacy was needed. Evans lay in the harbor with nine Chilean war vessels about him. The Chileans were celebrating some independence day or other with fireworks and searchlight drills. The white beams from the Chilean vessels had an impudent way of swinging occasionally on the little Yorktown, where she lay within machine-gun range of the Chilean cruisers. As the cruiser Cochrane fired her salute she let off a flight of war-rockets, and one of the heavy bombs barely missed the Yorktown. “I at once hoisted a large American flag,” read Evans’ log, “and turned both my searchlights on it, so that if anyone really wanted to hit me he could know just where I was. I was determined if trouble came there should be no ground for saying we had accidentally been struck in the dark. When the searchlights a few minutes later lighted us up they showed the crew of the Yorktown standing at their quarters and the guns all ready for business.” No more rockets came our way.

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