In front of this most interesting monument is a cannon that has a history.  Near the head of this instrument of destruction is the legend, Pluribus nec Impar.  On the body of the cannon we read Le Prince De Conde. Ultima Ratio Regum.  Louis Charles De Bourbon—­Comte D’Eu., Due D’Aumale.  A Douay—­Par T. Berenger.  Commissionaire.  Des Fontes Le 23 Mars, 1754.

The cannon is made of bronze, has a coat of arms, and is otherwise ornamented.  It has two handles in the shape of dragons.  It is twelve feet long.  But it has another inscription in which we are deeply interested.  This is in English, and reads as follows: 

“Captured at Santiago De Cuba, July 17, 1898, by the Fifth Army Corps, U.S.  Army, Commanded by Major General William R. Shafter, and presented by him to the City of San Francisco, California, in trust for the Native Sons of the Golden West, and accepted as a token of the valor and patriotism of the Army of the United States.”

While I was reading the inscriptions and making measurements an open two-seated carriage was driven up to the curbstone, about four o’clock in the afternoon.  From this a gentleman in a business suit, about sixty years of age, alighted and approached me.  He was a man of pleasing address.  He said to me, “You seem to be interested in this cannon.”  “I am,” was the reply.  Then he began to pace it and to examine it, and said, “It is just twelve feet long.”  He thought that possibly it came into the hands of the Spaniards during the Napoleonic wars, and that it at length found its way over to Cuba to help in enslaving the people of that island.  As I was attracted to my informant, I ventured to ask him whom I had the pleasure of addressing.  Imagine my astonishment and delight when he said modestly—­“I am General Shafter.”  I said to him, “I am glad to meet one so brave and who has helped to add new lustre to our Flag.”  He replied that “he considered it a privilege to have had a share in the liberation of Cuba, and that our beloved nation was on the march to still greater glory.”  Finding out where I came from, and that I lived near Ballston Spa, he said, “You must know my son-in-law, William H. McKittrick.”  I replied that I did, that I knew him when he was a boy, and that he and his family were my parishioners, when I was Rector of Christ Church, Ballston Spa, twenty-eight years ago.  Said he, “William distinguished himself in the Cuban War.  He is now a Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General, and it was he who was the first to hoist the Flag over Santiago.”  The General having courteously invited me to call on him, soon after bade me good-bye.  It was a chance meeting, but full of interest, especially under the circumstances.  Here was the hero who had captured the cannon and who had won laurels for himself and for his country.  McKittrick also comes of a patriotic family, his father having laid his life on the altar of his country in the Civil War; and after the elder McKittrick is named the Grand Army