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(Still better for the latter purpose, but less attainable, would be Portugal's Cape Verde Islands, 1,000 miles nearer Dakar, and athwart the straightest line from Africa to South America.) New England whalers used to sail to the Azores, recruit their crews from the wanderlusty Portuguese who inhabited the islands. Today, probably a third of the 254,000 Portuguese islanders have visited the U.S. at one time or another. In New Bedford, Mass., where some 20,000 transplanted Azoreans live, the newspapers are more interested in news from Horta and Ponta Delgada than from Germany.
So the Navy would find a certain understanding, if not a hearty welcome, if ever the U.S. moved into Horta and the islands' second-best port, Ponta Delgada, where the U.S. had a base during World War I. The Navy would also find practically no local defenses, but it would be in historic waters.
During the War of 1812, Captain Samuel Chester Reid of the U.S. privateer General Armstrong (nine guns, 90 men) put into Fayal for provisions. British Commodore Edward Lloyd followed with strong flotilla; the 74-gun Plantagenet, the 38-gun Rota, the 18-gun Carnation. In Fayal's harbor, at midnight, British, boarding the tiny General Armstrong, were driven off or thrown into the harbor. Overwhelmed at last, Captain Reid scuttled his ship, retired with his men to a stonewalled convent. Still afloat but damaged by the General Armstrong's gunfire, the British ships had to put back to England for repairs instead of proceeding immediately to Louisiana to reinforce the British expedition attacking New Orleans.
Navy men of today, remembering Captain Reid, keep him and John Paul Jones as reminders that naval victories do not always go to the merely strong.
*These and subsequent figures on the Fleet's strength are as reported up to last week.