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Show X$q Mo WiiKout A Country & Edujard Everett Hale " No document In actual Amer- lean history conveys a more I powerful lesson of what citizen- ft at ship in this republic means, none 5 delivers a more searching appeal a to loyalty, than this fanciful re- cital of the Man Without Country. The unhappy creature J whose living death it has graved upon the memory of mankind J was but a figure born of a writ- er's imagination. Yet, the ac- J count of his passionate outburst J and of his dreadful expiation $ stirs the dullest soul, and will 9 awaken emotion in the minds it a of readers of generations yet un- born. There can be no more -.-. it resting lesson for the disloyal or J the heedless, no more inspiring appeal to the spirit of true Amer- J icanism, than this memorable J work of literary art and high- 5 souled patriotism. 8 1 suppose Unit very few casual renders of the New York Herald of August ISth observed, in im obscure Cumtr, among the "Deaths," the Un-tlOlincolllcnt Un-tlOlincolllcnt : "NOLAN. Died, on board U. S. Corvette Cor-vette Levant i-ut. 'Z li" s., Long, i:i" V., oo the llih of May, PhlUp Nolan." I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old Mission-hoiise Mission-hoiise in Mackinac, Waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did not choose to come, and I was devouring, to the very stubble, all the current literature I could j;et hold of, even down to the deaths and marriages In the "Herald." My memory for names and people is good, and the reader will tee, as lie goes on, that I had reason enough to reinc inbcr Philip Nolan. There ure hundreds of readers who would have paused at that announcement, If the Officer of the Levant who reported it : had chosen to make it thus: "Died, May 1 1 tli. The Man without a Country.' Coun-try.' " For it was as "The Man without with-out a Country" that poor Philip Nolan had generally been known by the olli-eers olli-eers who had him In Charge during some fifty years, as. Indeed, by all the men who had sailed under them. I dare say there is many a man who has taken wine with him once a fortnight, fort-night, in a three years' cruise, who never knew that his name was "Nolan," "No-lan," or whether the poor wretch had any name ut all. There can now be no possible harm In telling this poor creature's story. Ueaaon enough there has been till now, ever since Madison's administration administra-tion went out in isli, for very strict secrecy, the aecrecy of honor Itself! among the genUemeo of the navy who have had Nolan in successive charge. And certainly It speaks well for the esprit es-prit de corps of the profession and the personal honor of Its members, that to the press this man's story lias been wholly unknown, and, I think, to the country at large a'so. 1 have reason to think, from some Investigations I made In the naval archives when, I was attached to the bun an of construction, that every official of-ficial report relating to hlffl was burned when Rosa burned the public buildings' at Washington, 'one of the Tuckers, or possibly one of the Watsoi s, had Nolan in charge at the end of the war.; and when, on returning from his cruise, be reported at Washington to one of the Crownlnehlelda who was in the navy department when be came home he found that the department lg nored the whole business. Whether they really knew oothlng about it, or whether It was a Doo nil rleordo, determined de-termined on as a piece of policy, I do not Know. Hut this I do I. now, that since 1S17, and possibly before, no naval Officer has mentioned Nolan In his report of a cruise. As I say, there is no need for secrecy se-crecy any longer. And now the poor creature is ilea 1. it seems to me worth while to tell a little of his story, by way of snowing young Americans of today what it la to be A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. I'hiiip Nolan was as Qua i young officer as there was In the "Legion ol the West," as the western division of our army was then called. When Aaron Burr made his flrsl dashing eX' pedition down to New Orleans in 1803, at loit Massac, or somewhere above on the river, lie met, US the devil would have it, tins gay, dashing, bright young fellow, at some dinner party, I think, 'birr marked blm, talked to him, walked with 1,11.1. tool; him a dtl.V or two's voyage in bis flatboat, and, in short, fascinated him. For the nexl year barrack life was very tpme to poor Nolan. He occasionally availed of the permis-ion the great man bud givi n him to w rite to him. Long, high-worded, high-worded, stilted letters the bo) wrote and re-wrote and copied. Km never a line did lie have In rcplj from the gay deceiver. The oiler boys in tie- garrison sneered at him. because he sacrificed in this unrequited affection affec-tion tor a politician lie- time which tiny devoted to Monongohela, sledge, and high-low-Jack. Bourbon, euchre and poker were still unknown. B it one iljy Nolan had Ills revenue. Thi- time Purr came down tha rlvi r, noi a BBS MSM I BBBBBSI - .'-.-a.- V E an attorney Seeking a place for Ids oiiice, but as a disguised conqueror, 31. bad defeated I know not how many ,illstrlct attorney: he had dined at I know not how many public- dinners; he had been heralded In I know not how many Weekly ArgUSes; and It was rumored ru-mored thai he had an army behind liltil and an-empire before him. it was a great da) Ids arrival- to poor Nolan. j Bun had not been at the fort an hour before he sent for him. That evening he aked Nolan to take him out In his skilT, to show him a cane -brake or a Cottonwood tree, as he said, really to seduce blm; and by the time the sail was over. Solan was enlisted body ami soul. From that time, though he did not yet I. now ii, he lived as "A Man Without a Country." What BUM meant to do I know no more than you, dear reader. It Is none of our business Just now. Only, when the grand catastrophe came, ami Jef fei-son and the House of Virginia of that day undertook to break on the wheel all the possible Clarences of Hie then House of York, by the great treason trial at Richmond, some f the less, r fi i that distant Mississippi valley, which was farther from us than Uget Sound is today, Introduced the like novelty on their provincial Stage, ami. to while away the monotony of the rammer at Fort Adams, goi up, for spectacles, a string of court inartiiiN on the officers there, one and anoth-i anoth-i r of the Colonel! and majors wen-tried, wen-tried, and. to till out the list, little Nolan, No-lan, against whom, heaven knows, there was evidence enough, that he was sic!; of the service, bad beell willing will-ing to be false to It, and would have obeyed any order to inarch anyvv hither with anyone who would follow uim, hud the order only been signed, "By command of His Kxc A. Burr." The 1 Courts dragged OO. The bin IlleS escaped, es-caped, rightly for all I know. Nolan was proved guilty enough, n I say; yet you and I would never have heard id' him. reader, hut that, when the president of the court Baked blm at the close, whether he wished to say anything any-thing to show that In- had always been i faithful to the United Static, he cried OUf, in a tit of frenzy : "I -n the United States! i wtah I m ay never hear of the United States gain :" I suppose be did not knpvv how the words shocked old Colonel Morgan, who was holding the court. Half the Officer! who sat in it had served through the Revolution, and their lives, not to say their necks, had been risked for the very Idea which he so cavalierly cur-eil in his madness, lie, on Ids part, had grown up In the West of those days, in the mldal of "Spanish plot," "Orleans plot." and all the rest. His education, such aa it was, had been perfected In commercial expeditions expedi-tions to Vera Cruz, and 1 think he told me his father once hired an Englishman English-man to be a private tutor for a winter on the plantation. He had spent half his youth with an older brother, hunting hunt-ing horses in Texas; and, in a word, to 'if lmmr wpfq "I Wish I May Never Hear of the United States Again!" him "United States" was scarcely O reullty. Vei be bad been fed by "United "Unit-ed Kt ite for ail the years lines he hai been In the army. He bad sworn n his fulth as a Christian to be true to lined Slates." It was "United S'ates" which gave blm the uniform ho Wore, and the sword by his side. Nay, iny i r Nolan, it was only because "United States" had picked you out t as one of her own confidential ii i :i of hi nor, thai "A. "Burr" cared for yi u ti straw more than for the tin t- boat men who ailed his ark for hliu. 1 do not eiis,- Nolan; I on'y explain t. the leabr w by he damned bis coun- t , '!h wished be mlgbl never heat her nam,- again. ' i ne r did bear In r name but oiici. sgal i i I'oiu thai moment, Beptem-tn Beptem-tn r -1, iv"7. tin the duy b died, Maj li, 1803, he never beard her name aguln. For that half century ant' more he was a nuin without a coun-t coun-t ry. Old Morgan, ns I said, wns terribly shocked, if Notsn had compared George Washington to Benedict .r nold. or had cried, "Coil save KIiir , Oeorge," Morgan would not have felt i worse. He called the court Into his private room, and returned In fifteen minutes, with a face like a sheet, to say : "Prisoner, hear the sentence of the court The court derides, subject to the approval of the president, that you never hear the name of the United States again." Nolan laughed, Bttt nobody else laughed, obi Iforgan was too solemn, and the whole room was hushed dead as night for a minute. Uven Nolan lost hif swagger in a moment. mo-ment. Then Morgan added: "Mr. Marshal, take the prisoner to Orleans In mi armed boat, and deliver him to tin- naval commander there." The marshal gave Ills orders, and the prisoner was taken out of court. "Mr, Marsh if," continued obi Morgan, Mor-gan, "see thai no one mentions the United Slates to the prisoner. Mr. Marshal, make my respects to Lieutenant Lieu-tenant .Mitchell ut Orleans, nnd re-! QUSS1 him to order that t tie shall I mention the United Stales to the prisoner pris-oner while he Is on board ship. You Will receive your written orders from the officer on duty h.'fo this evetlllltt. The court Is adloiirned without day." I have always supposed that Colonel Morgan himself took the proceedlnga of tb uit to Washington City, and explained them to Mr. Jefferson. Certain Cer-tain it Is that the president approved them. Certain, that Is. if I may believe the men who say they have seen his signature. The plan then adopted was sub-stantlnll) sub-stantlnll) tin' same which was neces sarlly followed ever after. Perhaps It was SUKffeSted by the necessity of ending him by water from Fort Adams ami Orleans The secretary of the navy was requested td put Nolan on board a irov eminent vessel bound on a long cruise, and to direct that he Should be inly so far Confined there III to male it Certain that be never saw or heard of tic country. We had few long cruises then, and the navy was very much out of favor; and as almost nil of this story is traditional, as I have explained. 1 do not know certainly cer-tainly whit his lil'st cruise Was. But the commander to whom he was Intrusted In-trusted perhaps it was Tlimcy or Shaw, though 1 think- It was one of the younger m-S we are all old enough now regulated the etiquette and the precautions of the affair, and according to his scheme they were carried out, l suppose, till Nolan died. When I was second officer of the Intrepid In-trepid some thirty years after, I saw the original paper of instructions, I, have been sorry ever since tha I did not copy the whole of It. It ran. however, how-ever, much In this way : "Washington," (With the date, which inn I have been lute In ISO"). "Sir- You will receive from Lieutenant Lieu-tenant Neale the person of Philip Nolan, No-lan, late a lieutenant In the United Stales army. 'This person on his trial by court-martial court-martial expressed with an oath the wish that be inirbt never hear of the United States again, "The court sentenced him to have his wis), fulfilled. "For the present, the exeiutioii of the order Is Intrusted by the president of, this department. "You will take the prisoner on board your ship and keep blm there with such precautions as shall prevent his -rape. "You win provide him with such quarters, rations, and clothing as would be proper for an otlicer of Ills In 1 1- rank, if he were a passenger on your vessel on the business of bis government, gov-ernment, "The gentlemen on board win make any arrangements ik' ble to themselves them-selves regarding Ida society. He is to be i m. ed to no Indignity "f any kind Bor is he ever unnecessarily to be re-niLnded re-niLnded that he Is a prisoner. "I'.ul under no circumstances Is he ever to hear of his country or to see any Information regarding it; and von will especially caution nil tin- officers under your c imroand to take care that, in the various Indulgences which may he granted, this rule, in which iiis punishment pun-ishment is Involved, shall not bo broken. it is the Intention of the government govern-ment that he shall never again see the country which he has disowned. Before the end of your cruise you will receive orders which will give effect to this intention. "Respectfully yours, "W. BOUTHARD, "for the Secretary of the Navy." Tf I had only preserved the whole of Ibis paper, there WOUld be no break in the beginning of my sketch if this story. For Captain Shaw, If 11 was he, handed I' to his successor In the charge, and he to his. The rule adopted n board the ships on which I have met "The Mali wi'hoiit a Country" was, I thluk, transmitted from the beginning. No mess liked to have hliu permanently, because his presence cut off all talk of In me or of the prospect of return, of politics or letters, of pet or of war cul off .noie than half the talk men like to have iii sea. Bul it was alwaya thought too hard that he s!. lib' never meet the rest of u ;, exi epl to tou i. hats, and vv e tinr.it- sunk into on tern, He was not permitted to talk with the men union I an officer with niiioers he Mei unrcstrultied m tercuurse, aa fur u they and be chose. Bui be grew shy, though he It id fu or Iteai l w ;, me, 1 1 . I i always askl I hllll to !,.:. r ..i, Mm, day. 1'v v oo look up tic Invltni Ion i. ' coiil Ing to 'Mil loin mess more or less often at H dinner. His breakfast he ate in his iH own stateroom, he always had u stilt"- H room, which was where a sentinel, or somebody on the w itch, could see the iH door, And whatever else he ate or iH drank he ate or drank alone. Some H times, when the marines or sailors had iH any special Jollification, they were per- H mitted to invito "Plain-Buttons," as iH (lay called hliu Then V.Ian was sent with some officer, ami lie- men were forbidden to speak of home while he iH was there. They called him "Plain- I Buttons," because, while he always H i Incse to wear a regulation army mil- H form, hi- was not permitted to wear if the army button, for the reason that iH It bore either the initials or the In- H slants of the country he had disowned. H I remember, soon after I Joined the ,H navy. 1 was on shore with some of the older officers from our ship and from H tie- Brandywlne, which we had met at i"H Alexandria. Wa bad leave to make ii H part) and go up to Cairo and I hi- I'yra- iH mlds. As we jogged along some of aH the gentlemen fell to talking about No J Inn, and someone told the system H which vv as adopted from the tllst about i his books mid other nadlng. As lie J was almost never penult led to go on snore, even though the vessel lay iii port H for mouths, Ills time, at the best, H hung heavy; and everybody was per iH mitted to lend him books, If they were H not published iii America and made no H allusion to it. These were common ,H enough In the old days, when people H in the other hemisphere talked of tin- H United Slates as Utile as we do of H Paraguay. He had almost all the for- H etgn papers that came Into the ship,- H sooner or later; only somebody must H go over them tlrst, and cut out any H advertisement or stray paragraph that . I alluded to America, Rlghl in the iH midst of one of Napoleon's battles, or one of Canning's speeches, poor Nolan iH Would tli i -1 a great bole, because on the ,H back of the page of that paper there iH bad been an ailverllsemetit of a packet H for N4 fork, a scrap from the H president'! message. I say this was H Hie Iii . lime I ever heard of this plan. H which afterwards I had enough, ami I more than enough, to do With. I re- H member it, because poor Phillips, who H was of the party, as soon as the ullii- H Blon to reading was made, told a story J of something which happened at the HH Cape of flood Hope on Nolan's first cjif Voyage; and it Is tb ily thine I ever H knew of that voyage. They had H touched at the Cape, ami had done the iH civil thing with the Kngllsh admiral iH ami the tleel, and I hen. leaving for a iH long cruise up the Indian ocean, 1'hil- iH lips had borrowed a lot of Kngllsh H books from an officer, which, In those H days, as 1ml 1 In these, was ipilte a I windfall. Among them, U the Devil iH would order, was the "Lay of the Lust H Miiisircl," which they had all of them ,H heard of. but which most of them had H never seen. 1 think It could not have H been published long. Well, nobody . thought there coul 1 ' e any risk of any- H thing national in that, though Phillips M swore old Shaw had cut out the H "Tempest" from Shakespeare before H he let Nolan have It, because be said, H "The Bermudas ought to he ours ami, H by .love, should be one day." So No- ,",1 Ian was permitted to Join the circle H me afternoon when a lot of them sal H on deck smoking ami reading aloud. H People do, not do such thtnga so often H now, bill when I was VOOUg vve got J rid of a great deal of time so. Well, II so It happened that 'in his turn Nolan WB took the hook and read to the others; jH ami he read very well, as I know. No- iH body In Die circle knew n llnexif the iH poem, only it was all inagb- and bor- H tli r chivalry, and was ten thousand H years ago. I'oor Nolan read steadily iH through tin- fifth canto, stopped a miu- M ute ami drank something, and then be- Mmmm gun, without a thought of what was H coining H Breathes them the man, with soul so H Wlin never to himself hath said pH It seems impossible to us that liny- body ever heard this for the first time; M but all these- fellows did then, and H poor Nolan himself went on, still un- ,H consciously or mechanically H This la my own, my native land! gH Then they all saw something was H to pay ; but he expected to get through, J 1 suppose, turned a little pule, but H plunged on H Whose heart huth ne'er within him if burned, I H As hum-- IiIh footsteps lie hntli turned H From weaderlng on a foreign strand? LH u such there breathe, fo, mark him srsll H I'.v this time the n were all be HH side themselves, wishing there was H way to make blm turn over two H bin he hai not quite presence lull H lor that; he gagged a - ired B8W crimson, and staggered on flfl 1'i.r l.im no nilnstr. 1 rapt igH High though a Boundless Bespits these vv aasasa and here the poor ; i could gggB not g bul lulled up. swung the M book into the va'i-'.ecl Into his M stateroom, "and by Jove," Id Phil- M Hi s, "we - e blm two H months Ami I had to lllllku up U some story to that Rr.gllsh surged iv h) i lid mi return ins Wal- ter to M Tliul story shows about the time M when S'olun'a bragguduclu must have iH broken ''own. At first, they suld, bu HI i very high tone, considered bis BU Imprisonment a mere farce, affected Hiiwl to i-n Jo j the voyage, and all that; lut B8W Phillips said that after l:e came mil of H9S hi . stateroom be never was the same i'Bb man Bin, I le i ever read aloud again, ffiW unless it wua the Bible or Shakespeare, mpM or something else bo was snru of, Bui Ww it was not thai merely. He never en ijv red in with the other young men ex- 'ffi aelly as ; companion ngnln. Re was HH always shy afterword, when I uuew . i lontinued next wt ek. i |