Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1910 — VALUABLE RELICS. [ARTICLE]

VALUABLE RELICS.

Two paintings, relics of the conquered Guerrere, have recently been taken to Boston, to be exhibited In the Constitution. When the British ship was sinking, after the famous battle, Commodore Isaac Hull of the American vessel sent an officer on board the Guerriere to secure snme souvenir of the victory. The officer cut with his sword the two pictures from the walls of the cabin, and carried them to Hull, in the possession of whose family they have since remained, until acquired by the Navy Department. The paintings represent an Egyptian scene and a Corinthian temple, and are valued highly as relics. They were not, however, the only souvenirs taken from the sinking ship. Frederic Stanhope Hall, In “Twenty-Six Historic Ships,’’ tells the story of another article rescued from the waters. Just before setting fire to the Guerriere, Captain Hull asked his prisoner, Captain Dacres, If there was anything he would like to save from his ship. “Yes,” replied the defeated British officer, “I would like to have my mother’s Bible, which I have carried about with me for years.” A lieutenant was sent from the Constitution to secure the Bible, and from that moment the two captains became fast friends, and remained such until Hull’s death in 1843. Years after the battle Hull, as a commodore, met Dacres as an admiral at Gibraltar, and at a dinner given the American on board the British flagship, Dacres showed Mrs. Hull the very Bible which her husband had saved.