by S. T. Joshi
There is a story that Nolan met Burr once on one of our vessels, when a party of Americans came on board in the Mediterranean. But this I believe to be a lie; or, rather, it is a myth, ben trovato, involving a tremendous blowing-up with which he sunk Burr, – asking him how he liked to be ‘without a country.’ But it is clear from Burr’s life, that nothing of the sort could have happened; and I mention this only as an illustration of the stories which get a-going where there is the least mystery at bottom.
Philip Nolan, poor fellow, repented of his folly, and then, like a man, submitted to the fate he had asked for. He never intentionally added to the difficulty or delicacy of the charge of those who had him in hold. Accidents would happen; but never from his fault. Lieutenant Truxton told me that, when Texas was annexed, there was a careful discussion among the officers, whether they should get hold of Nolan’s handsome set of maps and cut Texas out of it, – from the map of the world and the map of Mexico. The United States had been cut out when the atlas was bought for him. But it was voted, rightly enough, that to do this would be virtually to reveal to him what had happened, or, as Harry Cole said, to make him think Old Burr had succeeded. So it was from no fault of Nolan’s that a great botch happened at my own table, when, for a short time, I was in command of the George Washington corvette, on the South American station. We were lying in the La Plata, and some of the officers, who had been on shore and had just joined again, were entertaining us with accounts of their misadventures in riding the half-wild horses of Buenos Ayres. Nolan was at table, and was in an unusually bright and talkative mood. Some story of a tumble reminded him of an adventure of his own when he was catching wild horses in Texas with his adventurous cousin, at a time when he mast have been quite a boy. He told the story with a good deal of spirit, – so much so, that the silence which often follows a good story hung over the table for an instant, to be broken by Nolan himself. For he asked perfectly unconsciously. –
“Pray, what has become of Texas? After the Mexicans got their independence, I thought that province of Texas would come forward very fast. It is really one of the finest regions on earth; it is the Italy of this continent. But I have not seen or heard a word of Texas for near twenty years.”
There were two Texan officers at the table. The reason he had never heard of Texas was that Texas and her affairs had been painfully cut out of his newspapers since Austin began his settlements; so that, while he read of Honduras and Tamaulipas, and, till quite lately, of California, – this virgin province, in which his brother had travelled so far, and, I believe, had died, had ceased to be to him. Waters and Williams, the two Texas men, looked grimly at each other and tried not to laugh. Edward Morris had his attention attracted by the third link in the chain of the captain’s chandelier. Watrous was seized with a convulsion of sneezing. Nolan himself saw that something was to pay, he did not know what. And I, as master of the feast, had to say, –
“Texas is out of the map, Mr. Nolan. Have you seen Captain Back’s curious account of Sir Thomas Roe’s Welcome?”
After that cruise I never saw Nolan again. I wrote to him at least twice a year, for in that voyage we became even confidentially intimate; but he never wrote to me. The other men tell me that in those fifteen years he aged very fast, as well he might indeed, but that he was still the same gentle, uncomplaining, silent sufferer that he ever was, bearing as best he could his self-appointed punishment, – rather less social, perhaps, with new men whom he did not know, but more anxious, apparently, than ever to serve and befriend and teach the boys, some of whom fairly seemed to worship him. And now it seems the dear old fellow is dead. He has found a home at last, and a country.
* * *
Since writing this, and while considering whether or no I would print it, as a warning to the young Nolans and Vallandighams and Tatnalls of today of what it is to throw away a country, I have received from Danforth, who is on board the Levant, a letter which gives an account of Nolan’s last hours. It removes all my doubts about telling this story. The reader will understand Danforth’s letter, or the beginning of it, if he will remember that after ten years of Nolan’s exile every one who had him in charge was in a very delicate position. The government had failed to renew the order of 1807 regarding him. What was a man to do? Should he let him go? What, then, if he were called to account by the Department for violating the order of 1807? Should he keep him? What, then, if Nolan should be liberated some day, and should bring an action for false imprisonment or kidnapping against every man who had had him in charge? I urged and pressed this upon Southard, and I have reason to think that other officers did the same thing. But the Secretary always said, as they so often do at Washington, that there were no special orders to give, and that we must act on our own judgment. That means, “If you succeed, you will be sustained; if you fail, you will be disavowed.” Well, as Danforth says, all that is over now, though I do not know but I expose myself to a criminal prosecution on the evidence of the very revelation I am making.
Here is the letter: –
LEVANT, 2° 2’ S. @ 131° W.
“DEAR FRED: – I try to find heart and life to tell you that it is all over with dear old Nolan. I have been with him on this voyage more than I ever was, and I can understand wholly now the way in which you used to speak of the dear old fellow. I could see that he was not strong, but I had no idea the end was so near. The doctor has been watching him very carefully, and yesterday morning came to me and told me that Nolan was not so well, and had not left his state-room, – a thing I never remember before. He had let the doctor come and see him as he lay there, – the first time the doctor had been in the state-room, – and he said he should like to see me. Oh, dear! Do you remember the mysteries we boys used to invent about his room in the old ‘Intrepid’ days? Well, I went in, and there, to be sure, the poor fellow lay in his berth, smiling pleasantly as he gave me his hand, but looking very frail. I could not help a glance round, which showed me what a little shrine he had made of the box he was lying in. The stars and stripes were triced up above and around a picture of Washington, and he had painted a majestic eagle, with lightnings blazing from his beak and his foot just clasping the whole globe, which his wings overshadowed. The dear old boy saw my glance, and said, with a sad smile, ‘Here, you see, I have a country!’ And then he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before a great map of the United States, as he had drawn it from memory, and which he had there to look upon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were on it, in large letters: ‘Indiana Territory,’ ‘Mississippi Territory,’ and ‘Louisiana Territory,’ as I suppose our fathers learned such things: but the old fellow had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his western boundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that shore he had defined nothing.
“ ‘O Captain,’ he said, ‘I know I am dying. I cannot get home. Surely you will tell me something now? – Stop! Stop! Do not speak till I say what I am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that there is not in America, – God bless her! – A more loyal man than I. There cannot be a man who loves the old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or hopes for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now, Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do not know what their names are. There has never been one taken away: I thank God for that. I know by that that there has never been any successful Burr, O Danforth, Danforth,’ he sighed out, ‘how like a wretched night’s dream a boy’s idea of personal fame or of separate sovereignty seems, when one looks back on it after such a life as mine! But tell me, – tell me something, – tell me everything, Danforth, before I die!’
“Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had not told him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who was I, that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole manhood’s life, the madness of a boys treason? ‘Mr. Nolan,’ said I, ‘I will tell you everything you ask ab
out. Only, where shall I begin?’
“Oh, the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he pressed my hand and said, ‘God bless you!’ ‘Tell me their names,’ he said, and he pointed to the stars on the flag. ‘The last I know is Ohio. My father lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michigan and Indiana and Mississippi, – that was where Fort Adams is, – they make twenty. But where are your other fourteen? You have not cut up any of the old ones, I hope?’
“Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names in as good order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map and draw them in as I best could with my pencil. He was wild with delight about Texas, told me how his cousin died there; he had marked a gold cross near where he supposed his grave was; and he had guessed at Texas. Then he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon; – that, he said, he had suspected partly, because he had never been permitted to land on that shore, though the ships were there so much. ‘And the men,’ said he, laughing, ‘brought off a good deal besides furs.’ Then he went back – heavens, how far! – to ask about the Chesapeake, and what was done to Barron for surrendering her to the Leopard, (footnote 11) and whether Burr ever tried again, – and he ground his teeth with the only passion he showed. But in a moment that was over, and he said, ‘God forgive me, for I am sure I forgive him.’ Then he asked about the old war, – told me the true story of his serving the gun the day we took the Java, – asked about dear old David Porter, as he called him. Then he settled down more quietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour the history of fifty years.
“How I wished it had been somebody who knew something! But I did as well as I could. I told him of the English war. I told him about Fulton and the steamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott, and Jackson; told him all I could think of about the Mississippi, and New Orleans, and Texas, and his own old Kentucky. And do you think, he asked who was in command of the ‘Legion of the West.’ I told him it was a very gallant officer named Grant and that, by our last news, he was about to establish his head-quarters at Vicksburg. Then, ‘Where was Vicksburg?’ I worked that out on the map; it was about a hundred miles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams; and I thought Fort Adams must be a ruin now. ‘It must be at old Vick’s plantation, at Walnut Hills,’ said he: ‘well, that is a change!’
“I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the history of half a century into that talk with a sick man. And I do not now know what I told him, – of emigration, and the means of it, – of steamboats, and railroads, and telegraphs, – of inventions, and books, and literature, – of the colleges, and West Point, and the Naval School, – but with the queerest interruptions that ever you heard. You see it was Robinson Crusoe asking all the accumulated questions of fifty-six years!
“I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now; and when I told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln’s son. He said he met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boy himself, at some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian like himself, but I could not tell him of what family; he had worked up from the ranks. ‘Good for him!’ cried Nolan; ‘I am glad of that. As I have brooded and wondered, I have thought our danger was in keeping up those regular successions in the first families.’ Then I got talking about my visit to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon Congressman, Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian, and the Exploring Expedition; I told him about the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment, and Crawford’s Liberty, and Greenough’s Washington: Ingham, I told him everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his country and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tell him a word about this infernal rebellion!
“And he drank it in and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He grew more and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired or faint. I gave him a glass of water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go away. Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian ‘Book of Public Prayer’ which lay there, and said, with a smile, that it would open at the right place, – and so it did. There was his double red mark down the page; and I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me, ‘For ourselves and our country, O gracious God, we thank These, that, notwithstanding our manifold transgressions of Thy holy laws, Thou hast continued to us Thy marvellous kindness,’ – and so to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he turned to the end of the same book, and I read the words more familiar to me: ‘Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in authority,’ – and the rest of the Episcopal collect. ‘Danforth,’ said he, ‘I have repeated those prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five years.’ And then he said he would go to sleep. He bent me down over him and kissed me; and he said, ‘Look in my Bible, Captain, when I am gone.’ And I went away.
“But I had no thought it was the end: I thought he was tired and would sleep. I knew he was happy, and I wanted him to be alone.
“But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. He had something pressed close to his lips. It was his father’s badge of the Order of the Cincinnati.
“We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the place where he had marked the text. –
“ ‘They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city.’
“On this slip of paper he had written:
“ ‘Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not some one set up a stone for my memory (footnote 12) at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it:
“ ‘In Memory of
“ ‘PHILIP NOLAN,
“ ‘Lieutenant in the Army of the United States.
“ ‘He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at her hands.’ “
Footnote 1. Frederic Ingham, the ‘I’ of the narrative, is supposed to be a retired officer of the United States Navy.
Footnote 2. Few readers …observed. In truth, no one observed it, because there was no such announcement there. The author has, however, met more than one person who assured him that they had seen this notice. So fallible is the human memory!
Footnote 3. The Levant was a corvette in the American navy, which sailed on her last voyage, with despatches for an American officer in Central America, from the port of Honolulu in 1860. She has never been heard of since, but one of her spars drifted ashore on one of the Hawaiian islands. I took her name intentionally, knowing that she was lost. As it happened, when this story was published, only two American editors recollected that the Levant no longer existed. We learn from the last despatch of Captain Hunt that he intended to take a northern course heading eastward toward the coast of California rather than southward toward the Equator. At the instance of Mr. James D. Hague, who was on board the Levant to bid Captain Hunt good bye on the day when she sailed from Hilo, a search has been made in the summer of 1904 for any reef or islands in that undiscovered region upon which she may have been wrecked. But no satisfactory results have been obtained.
Footnote 4. James Madison was President from March 4, 1809, to March 4, 1817. Personally he did not wish to make war with England, but the leaders of the younger men of the Democratic party – Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, and others – pressed him against his will to declare war in 1812. The war was ended by the Treaty of Peace at Ghent in the year 1814. It is generally called ‘The Short War’. There were many reasons for the war. The most exasperating was the impressment of American seamen to serve in the English navy. In the American State Department there were records of 6,257 such men, whose friends had protested to the American government. It is believed that more than twenty thousand Americans were held, at one time or another, in such service. For those who need to study this subject, I recommend Spears’s History of our Navy, in four
volumes. It is dedicated ‘to those who would seek Peace and Pursue it.’
Footnote 5. Aaron Burr had been an officer in the American Revolution. He was Vice-President from 1801 to 1805, in the first term of Jefferson’s administration. In July, 1804, in a duel, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton, a celebrated leader of the Federal party. From this duel may be dated the indignation which followed him through the next years of his life. In 1805, after his Vice-Presidency, he made a voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, to study the new acquisition of Louisiana. That name was then given to all the country west of the Mississippi as far as the Rocky Mountains. The next year he organized a military expedition, probably with the plan, vaguely conceived, of taking Texas from Spain. He was, however, betrayed and arrested by General Wilkinson, – then in command of the United States army, – with whom Burr had had intimate relations. He was tried for treason at Richmond but acquitted.
Footnote 6. Colonel Morgan is a fictitious character, like all the others in this book, except Aaron Burr.
Footnote 7. The ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel’ is one of the best poems of Walter Scott. It was first published in 1805. The whole passage referred to in the text is this: –
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,Who never to himself hath said,This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,As home his footsteps he hath turn’d From wandering on a foreign strand?If such there breathe, go, mark him well!For him no minstrel raptures swell;High though his titles, proud his name,Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
