interfere in the religious war which his most Catholic
Majesty, the Emperor of the French, is now waging in
the strange company of Protestant England, for the
possession of the Holy places in the dominions of the
Porte ! Here is the explanation of this extraordinary
coup d^etat of the Jesuits against the navy and the
country. Here, Americans, is the philosophy why
President Pierce, elected by a church holding a balance
power in this country, and ruling it in politics, and
his Secretary of the Navy, consented to the finding of
a Navy Board which had been obtained by the sacri-
fice of those great principles of personal rights, which
induced and justified the American Ee volution. A
Board which sat in secret conclave without the ex-
amination of persons or papers, made no records, and
decided in twelve minutes and forty seconds upon the
lifetime services of all those who had materially con-
tributed to elevate and distinguish the American ISTavy,
either by profound scientific discoveries, great inven-
tions, or brilliant naval achievements at sea ! Promi-
nent among these is Commodore Stewart, occupying the
same relation to the Navy that the illustrious Scott
bears to the Army of our country whose signal service
for almost a half century is known and appreciated by
all who value sincerity, constancy, and daring courage
in the American name and who is indubitably entitled
to the rank of Admiral by every concession of justice.
Yet even he, while in the active duty of command at
the Philadelphia Navy Yard, was displaced for another,



ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN XAVY. 279

Commodore Morris, who, tliougli a gallant officer, had
made but one cruise at sea in the last thirty-two years I
It also opened its unquenchable fires upon Commodore
Sloat, Avho anticipated the English but a short time in
taking possession of California, and raising the Ameri-
can flag upon that soil which has enriched our nation
by its valuable territory, and been embraced into
Ameriran arms. He it was, who by the construction
of gun-carriages and the use of live oak timber, other-
wise added usefulness to his country, and largely saved
her national pecuniary resources. There, too, is Lieu-
tenant William D. Porter, to whose efficient service for
thirty-three years his country is indebted for the better
construction and equipment and discipline of ships, for
the valuable reorganization of Light Houses and Buoys,
for new methods of cultivating Hemp, and for the
brilliant chemical discovery of producing Carburetted
Hydrogen Gas from wood, all which entitle him to the
highest honors of distinction for his singular usefulness
in the American service. Nor could the charts of
winds and currents of the ocean, which have protected
merchant ships from gins and snares, and saved from
danger as well as shortened the voyage — impel a holier
action towards our gallant ^laur}^, who with intrepid-
ity and enthusiasm, in his country's service, has not
only diminished the cruise of whale ships from thirty-
six to eighteen months, by ascertaining the migratory
character of that leviathan of the deep, but by various
contributions to our physical geography. Lieutenant
Gilliss, too, is there ! the famed American Astronomer,
whoj by his stupendous labors in science under the



280 THE GREAT AMEEICAN BATTI.E.

orders of liis government, took forty thousand obser-
vations in southern latitudes, in a residence of three
years in Cliili, and so astounded the world Avith ad-
miration and wonder, that the French and English
officers sent by their governments upon similar
missions, adopted his data, without questioning its
accuracy. The same great movements of Graham
Maffit and others, cannot be overlooked, more than the
unadulterated bravery of many now disgraced, who
have faced the enemy under fearful odds, and won
fresh laurels for their country's glory. And now un-
der the standard of our assaulted, but yet living liberty,
the American mind must be stirred to the dregs ; our
country under the authority of Eome has been steered
into Papal seas until she cries out for American help,
from the blackness and darkness of despair !

By the Greytown bombardment — by the Ostend con-
ference — by the complicity of the government in the
homicide of Don Raymond, the "Washington of Cuba —
by the refusal to protect Purser Smith, an American
citizen — by the persecution of the peaceable colonists of
Nicaragua — by the appointment of Roman Catholics
throughout the postal and revenue service of the
country, and the employment of foreigners in its Navy
Yards to the exclusion of the sons of revolutionary
sires, who were starving in the streets and on the high-
ways for Avork — and by the entire action of the national
executive in reference to the destruction of the Ameri-
can Navy and the Anti- American policy, which has
entirely characterized the actings of Mr. Pierce's ad-
ministration, it has already been pronounced by the



ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN NAVY. 281

judgment of true Americans, the darkest epocli in
American annals ! Why was the action of the Navy
Board in such sweet accordance with executive sym-
pathy ? Because it added these two hundred and one
appointments to his patronage, a matter of no small
importance to Congressmen in 1856, whose reelections
are often so ticklish, that no step to propitiate distin-
guished influence at home, can possibly be overlooked,
while the President, feeling his position, to secure his
own nomination by the Democratic party, equally risk}',
was ready to compromise American honor, to entitle
him to this distinction from his friends through the con-
gressional instrumentalities for which they claim the
benefit of the monopoly.

At the time this bill became a law, the administration
was zealously interested in searching out of the country,
with vulgar ugliness, the hated, dreaded, KnoAV-
Nothingism ! The local elections of Yirginia and the
City of Washington were about to come off, and the
scale of action for the employees of the government was
seasonabl}^ fixed — the Executive pati-onage was dis-
pensed right and left to defeat ]\Ir. Flournoy, of Yir-
ginia, the American candidate for governor, and the
President compelled the clerks of the departments at
Washington to go to the polls and deposit their votes
for the administration candidates, or lose their places.
And its candidates were defeated, to their great dis-
comfort, mainly by the eflbrts of Lieutenant Wm. D.
Porter, then a resident of Washington, who, by his
personal popularity with the workmen, and in the
indomitable will of an American, led five hundred



282 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

voters to the ballot-box, and thus saved the metropolis
of the nation from the tawny complexion of Eoman-
ism.

But such resistance was in conflict with the absolute
obedience of their faith, and it was soon resolved in
the Democratic and Jesuit councils to place the navy
in the same position as the custom houses and post
offices of the country, and unable to find a charge
upon the records, physical, mental or moral against
this American Porter, he was doomed to be "retired."

Let us look at the persons who composed this nota-
ble Navy Board. Captains — Wm. B. Shubrick, Mat-
thew C. Perry, Charles McCauley, C. K. Stribbling, and
Abraham Bigelow. Commanders — G. I. Pendergrast,
Franklin Buchanan, Samuel F. Dupont, Samuel Bar-
ron, and Andrew II. Foote. Lieutenants — John S.
Missron, Eichard L. Page, Sylvanus AY. Godon, Wm.
L. Maury, and James S. Biddle. All these gentlemen,
it is well known, were educated at the expense of the
government; and, except Captain Perry, have never
performed any memorable service b}^ which the coun-
try has been honored or the navy advanced.

In looking into the ISTavy Register, the peoj)le will
be shocked to find that these " fifteen," with scarcely
an exception, have dropped, furloughed, or retired,
every name on the Active List of the navy above
themselves in the order of promotion, and thus em-
bracing the opportunity to advance their own fortunes,
have, at the expense of these outraged men, taken the
shore stations with large pecuniary emoluments, instead
of active commands upon the ships. And let it be



ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AMERICAN" 'XAYY. 283

borne in painful remembrance, tliat not one of these
officers, who composed the Board, came into the navy
from the mercantile marine, although it is they Avho
have given most eclat to the navy, they who have
lifted their country's honor most fearlessly and most
laboriously to public admiration, wherever its flag has
been unfurled. These officers from the mercantile
marine, these self-made specimens of American men,
who would have cleared the raft and emptied the tanks
of injustice towards their country or her sons, were not
only unrepresented,, but became the especial subjects ot
its malignancy and vengeance !

The tart cathartic virtue of the Secretary of the Navy
asked for this law, upon the plea of the exhorbitant
personelle of the American navy, but after he obtained
its passage he discovered that ten new sloops of war, ot
light draught, were needed by the government ! Thus
he floats and swings like a songster which has strayed
into the wilderness and is uncertain where to fly.

Our country should always be in readiness for the
terror of the storm, and should never be left as an
undecked boat. And in place of the Secretary's " light
sloops," and the lean, cracked navy he has made, the
American government now requires not only the brave
men of whom it is bereaved, by his effi:>rts, but a line-of-
battle ships, large sea-going steamers, and steam frigates,
in addition to the ten new steamers ordered to be
built.

With singular stoicism of conscience, the Board, in
their self-relying souls, dropped every officer who held
the grade of master— a hyieroglyphic which signifies in



284 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

common language, fear ! The American people, quick
to discern justice and truth, ever demand a direct pas-
sage to their beams, and require therefore a more minute
inspection of the Board who performed the obsequies
of the late United States Navy. We find four of that
" Judicial Commission" to have been sent home by
Commander Hull as insubordinate officers !

The chairman of the Board was Captain Shubrick,
who stated he was at the battle of Coney Island in the
laudatory pamphlet, which he published to prove the
same, and in which he most flagrantly assaulted the
Yirginia Volunteers. These Volunteers, unwilling to
eat dust before the throne of freedom, caused an inves-
tigation before the Virginia Legislature, when it was
proved, by the most refulgent evidence, that the said
Shubrick was not on the Island during the fight!
Americans, this was the president of the "Eetiring
Board," which passed upon the " moral, mental, and
physical competency of the entire American Navy,
numbering seven hundred and tv/elve men of the va-
rious ranks ! This swimming man writes to Captain
Smoot, "that he ought to be satisfied, as he now
receives more than many pious clergymen, &c., and
even though that be taken away, the Board ought to
be sustained, as none were punished unjustly."

In the name of Dupont, there aj)pears a Catholic, and
descendant of the only French officer wlio ever sur-
rendered an army of France, for which he was com-
pelled by Napoleon to leave the country, upon the
allegation of cowardice. Dupont is famous, and only
distinguished for having made out of the government



ATTEMPT TO DESTllOY AMERICAN NAVY. 285

half a million of money by contracts for powder and
clothing. This family, all Catholic, having immense
wealth, and a large number of employees, are able to
exert a large political influence in that State I

We find also the name of Barron — the same Barron,
let Americans remember, in painful humiliation, who
lowered his flag to the English frigate. Leopard, with-
out returning a shot, and allowed American seamen
to be taken from his ship. This was the first stain ever
put upon the American flag ! which was afterwards
the first errand of Commodore Porter in the Essex — a
wise selection, truly, to put the second disgrace upon
the stars and stripes of the American nation. His
name also is not forgotten by this people, in connection
with the death of Commodore Decatur.

Then there is Godon on the Board, another Eoman
Catholic Avho was once tried, by court-martial, and
dismissed from the service of his country, but eluding
the good end of that trial, he Avas afterwards intrigued
into this position. The name of Pendergrast goes
along Avith Dupont, Godon, and Barron, who were
sent home to be court-martialed, as insubordinate offi-
cers in the Mediterranean squadron, by Commodore
Hull. The American people can best decide as to
the benefit which has ensued to the country, by the
clemency extended in these cases.

In May or June last, the San Jacinto, having Com-
modore McCauley and Capt. Stribbling on board, was
examined, under the general orders of the Navy De-
partment at Kew York, by Commodore Boormau, who
reported against the efficiency of the ship. These dis-



286 THE GKEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

tinguislied officers, therefore, "retired" Boormanfrom
that Navy Yard, which the Secretary of the Kavy
and President endorsed, by putting the junior Captain
of the Board, Bigelow, in his place! who, with Shu-
brick and Dupont, are said to be engaged in lake
speculations. Stribbling likewise has had dark charges
preferred against him, which fully entitle him to a
seat in the association, if not a high priest in the pro-
profession. Captains Perry and McCauley, and Com-
mander Foote, members of the Board, but a powerless
minority, are understood by the public to have disap-
proved of its action, and hence ought not to share in
the general obloquy and censure with the majority,
with whom they were most unfortunately connected.

Who were most active in getting up this Inquisition
of Americans? It was Morris, Dupont, Barron, Go-
don, Blake, Magruder, and Jenkins, who have all pro-
vided for themselves. Not a single member of this
fifteen came from the source of our greatest glory, the
mercantile marine! On board of the line of battle-
ship, Ohio, from whence Commodore Hull returned
Pendergrast, Dupont, and Godon, as insubordinate,
Commander Lockwood held position, and was retained
in the service ; and his friends, not without cause, at-
tribute his " retirement " by the Board, to the action of
Commodore Hull, as well as to a difficulty with Bige-
l®w, in the Gulf, on board a propeller.

On the 20th of June, 1856, these "fifteen" took
their seats in the city of "Washington, the supreme
critics in droll disguises, to measure and define the
character and usefulness of the officers of the American



ATTEMPT TO DESTEOY AMERICAN NAVY. 287

Nayy. The law said, " jou shall make a careful ex-
amination into the efficiency of the grades of the officers
hereinafter mentioned." The learned Secretary of the
Kavy defines this inefficiency of officers to arise from
" physical, mental, or moral causes." The law said,
" whenever the Board shall believe that such incom-
petency has arisen from any cause implying sufficient
blame on the part of the officer to justify it, they shall
recommend that his name be altogether stricken from
the rolls. And secondly, provides a "reserved list,"
a "furlough and leave of absence pay," rendering the
officers "subject for duty," but "ineligible to further
promotion" or pay. Here is a deprivation of private
property, (personal reputation) for the purposes of the
government, without compensation, and the placing
individuals, it may be a second time, on trial, for the
same offence, which is retrospective or expost facto,
and of course a manifest palpable infraction of the con-
stitutional code which governs American liberty. And
must arouse the indignation of the country at the un-
paralleled disregard of every claim of justice and right
to its own Navy, and teach the executive of Mr. Pierce
that it belongs to the descendants of those who fought
and gained our liberties, and not to the dominion of
the See of Kome. Happily for the nation, the Army
thus far has escaped a similar outrage through the manly
courage of the present Honorable Secretary of War,
wliich had been designed to subserve the same inglori-
ous end.

Public opinion is now lashing together these ma-
terials and threaten a fierce explosion in the coming



288 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

Presidential election. The American people in their
great nationality stand ready to grind out cause and
effect, to value rightly the liberty their fathers created,
and to appropriate it — glory to God ! The hearts and
souls of men were not given to the Board by this law —
Congress only authorized it to "recommend" to the
Secretary who w^as made by the act, the supervisor of
that " fifteen," and as responsible for its proceedings as
is the artizan for the building though he neither laid
the timbers or drove a nail ! He has, however, possibly
in mistaken ignorance, acted more as the clerk to that
Board. And he who saw no more of its data than a
Nautilus, in its shelly covering, yet informs the Presi-
dent, he "carefully examined the report!" And he,
ungenerous and tyrannical, was prepared to blast the in-
terests, crucify the feeling, and character of these brave
American Officers, and disgrace this great arm of
American service sooner than hazzard the political
advantages which he carefully concluded might in this
action inure to himself. Why were not these officers,
though tried as by fire, allowed to appear in their
own defence ! a right guarranted by our institutions to
the cut-purse or murderer ? The slightest pecuniary
or personal interest makes nugatory the action of a
juror, or the credibility of a witness under our wise
laws. But, here sat a court of fifteen, interested men,
whose ambitious aspirations could be gratified by
passing condemnation on unoffending men, and the
power of the temptation so far from being resisted, was
most shamefiilly appropriated to their own personal
advancement.



ATTEMPT TO DESTIIOY AMERICAN NAVY. 289

It was for inability or incompetency, and not for tlie
trial of offences, that tte act of Congress was passed, be-
cause an adequate remedy for the latter was known to
have been antecedent by courts-martial. Neither was it
for reduction, but for reform in the navy, as was osten-
sibly set forth by the Congressional Eeport. It is said
that the action of the Board was discordant and turbu-
lent, and the minority was sometimes so powerful, that
the fate of some officers must have been decided by a
single vote ; as that of Lieut. Davis, by the action of
Perry. And from the limited period of its short sit-
tings, in the thirty odd days of the session, but twelve
minutes and forty seconds could have been allowed,
under the most favorable movement, to decide upon
the worth and usefulness of a single man. Like moles,
they were industrious, worked in the dark, and in a
mistaken mother-wit, as they thought, very deep ; but
oh, what a stumble and trip! "Know thyself" had
not got down from heaven when they went to the
work ! This action has advanced officers, which the
navy register shows, have not seen service afloat or on
land for twenty-five years ! One member of the Board
has been thus idle for twenty-three years, another
eighteen ! One has twice been afflicted with a broken
leg, although the distinguished Maury, who has filled
the world with admiration and praise, for his scientific
labors, which have blessed it, in common with his own
country, and whose service at sea is greater also
than many officers promoted by the Board, can find no
other explanation for having been snatched, ruthlessly
from the active list, which he has honored for thirty
13



290 THE GilEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

years, than tliat lie once broke liis leg, some fifteen
years ago! And when it is a notorious fact, that
others, maimed and blind, passed this ordeal unscathed,
Americans demand that retributive justice shall sum
men to their bar, those who have disfrancbised and de-
graded her distinguished sons, and have thus been
sentenced in the dark, upon the shadowy plea of in-
competency. Every officer, above the junior members
of the Board, advanced one or more of its '"'Fifteen,"
by being declared incompetent. Hence of three hun-
dred and sixty-two in that rank, 188 were ejected from
all further promotion, whilst forty-six only of three
hundred and thirty -two helow the line of promotion,
suffered any sentence of disapprobation from their arbi-
trary power.

It cannot be doubted, that the navy, numbering so
many officers, ranks, and grades, may, like all other
bodies of the same magnitude, have possessed some
devoid of the confidence of the country, and unworthy
to bear station in the American service ; but there is
no man, however debased by idleness, ignorance, in-
temperance, or moral turjDitude, who, as an American
citizen, has not a right, under American laws, to be
heard in his own defence, before doomed to an igno-
miny from whence there is no possible escape !

There are doubtless Eoman Catholics who have
shared in the common disgrace, but is it not fair to pre-
sume this may have arisen either from misapprehen-
sion, or a concerted show of magnanimity, to shut out the
light of facts from the eyes of the American people, and
tbus screen their real design, when their gallant Por»



ATTEMPT TO DESTKOY AMERICAN XAVY. 291

ter and otlicr officers are knoiun to have been punislied,
for the crime of maintaining and espousing, at the ex-
pense of governmental displeasure, the active princi-
ciples of the American Party. Again, the Secretary
and the Board decline the civility of personal explana-
tion, not only to men like Lieut. Maury, but ladies,
prostrated in the common suffering of their natural
protectors, have received nothing more from the Hon.
Secretarj^'s courtesy. Lastly, science, which is to the
American as the sun of heaven, gladdening and illu-
mining the world, had so little sympathy with this
government action, that it has, by the acknowledge-
ment of Biddle, a member of the Board, been pro-
nounced as just a cause for removal from further pro-
motion in the service, as the love of idleness, laziness,
or lucre !

Science, the firmest friend of virtue, Avhich is the
commanding power over the destructiveness of the ele-
ments, and teaches Americans only to follow, and not
to be led or driven, is undoubtedly in conflict with the
wisdom and will of Papal Jesuitism, which has to be
simultaneously propitiated at Washington and Eome !
It is often as painful to the mind as the sight, to look
upward ; and the Lilliputian coterie never evince half
the surprise or gratification of beholding giants, that
men of great stature find. Hence the absence of
admiration and suffrage of these wise men of the
Board. Unwilling to do homage for what they felt no
reverence, and refusing the navy the adoration of such
intellectual phenomena, as might tend to embarrass
and grapple with their own mental anatomy. But



292 THE GKEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

wliy, if science had. so out-grown its naval cradle, as
to discard some of its nurses, why were they not all
similarly removed from the active service? The
American people emphatically and dogmatically ask —
why? What martyrs to virtue — what infirmities of
men ! Ye magnanimous gods ! Look, Americans, at
the nature of the contract between the government of
the country and the servants in its service. They
swear, on the one part, to give their lives to the main-
tenance of its glory, and to trace its triumphal name,
in war and victory, at its call. The government, on
the other, binds itself by the same solemn obligation,
to protect and honor these men, under the heaviest
cannonading known to its laws; and the adminis-
tration, unable to sail in their teeth, have tacked about
to inflict a mortal blow upon these guardians of liberty,
which has excited the fears and the shame of the
American nation.

There is not a despotic government, upon which the
light of heaven has ever shone, that would have per-
petrated similar banishment and execution upon the
right arm of its defence. In England, France, Nor-
way, and Sweden, the informer, the accusation, and
the proof, have to glow and permeate in the public
gaze, before any individual in their service can be
branded as incompetent or corrupt. While in Eussia,
nothing short of an open trial can possibly produce a