Secretary of the Admiralty. It read as follows: “My Lords Commissioners
of the Admiralty having received intelligence that several of the
American ships of war are now at sea, I have their Lordships’ commands
to acquaint you therewith, and that they do not conceive that any
of his Majesty’s frigates should attempt to engage, single-handed,
the larger class of American ships, which, though they may be called
frigates, are of a size, complement and weight of metal much beyond
that class and more resembling line-of-battle ships.
“In the event of one of his Majesty’s frigates under your orders
falling in with one of these ships, his captain should endeavor in
the first instance to secure the retreat of his Majesty’s ship; but
if he finds that he has an advantage in sailing he should endeavor
to manœuvre, and keep company with her, without coming to action, in
the hope of falling in with some other of his Majesty’s ships, with
whose assistance the enemy might be attacked with a reasonable hope of
success.
“It is their Lordships’ further directions that you make this known
as soon as possible to the several captains commanding his Majesty’s
ships.” (The _Croker Papers_, I, 44.)
In a paper recently prepared by him on the American Navy, Rear-Admiral
French Ensor Chadwick pronounces this “the finest tribute ever paid
any navy.” (Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for
November, 1912, Vol. 46, pp. 207-208.)
[9] This incident resulted from what was known as the affair of the
_Little Belt_. It occurred May 16, 1811, off Cape Charles, Virginia.
The United States frigate _President_, of forty-four guns, and the
British corvette, of twenty guns, were concerned in it. The affair was
accidental, and the _Little Belt_ escaped being sunk, but, at the time,
asserted that after a sharp engagement it had driven off the American
frigate of greatly superior force. It was alleged that the commander of
the _President_ had mistaken the _Little Belt_ for the _Guerrière_; and
consequently the captain of the _Guerrière_, it was said, subsequently
had the name of the ship painted as indicated by Mr. Adams, in order
that in future there should be no possibility of mistake.
[10] Reference is here made to the engagements between the frigates
_Constitution_ and _Guerrière_, August 19, between the frigates _United
States_ and _Macedonian_, October 25, and between the _Wasp_ and the
_Frolic_, both eighteen-gun sloops of war, October 17--all in 1812. The
_Wasp_ was commanded by Captain Jacob Jones of Delaware. The action
lasted forty-three minutes, was desperately fought, and resulted in the
capture of the _Frolic_.
[11] This statement illustrates the slowness with which news then
traveled in Russia, or the degree to which information was suppressed
during the campaign of 1812. St. Petersburg is about four hundred and
fifty miles from the river Niemen, which constituted the boundary
between East Prussia and Russia. Mr. Adams occupied an official
position at St. Petersburg. What remained of Napoleon’s army had
succeeded in effecting its escape by the crossing of the Beresina
during the closing days of November. On the fifth of December Napoleon
had left his army at Smorgoni, a town in the Russian province of Vilna,
and about one hundred and twenty-five miles east of the river Niemen.
At the time this letter was written he had been thirteen days in Paris,
having reached that place on the evening of December 18. Thus tidings
of what had occurred on the fifth of December, in Russia, less than
four hundred and fifty miles from St. Petersburg, had not reached St.
Petersburg and become generally known on the thirty-first of that month.
[12] Fought May 2, 1813, near Leipsic, Saxony, between the French under
Napoleon and the allies, Prussian and Russian. The French greatly
predominated in numbers, and claimed the victory, which, however,
proved fruitless.
[13] Bautzen, fought May 21, 1814, between the allies and the French,
at a point some thirty miles east of Dresden, and about one hundred
and fifty miles from Lützen. It was another nominal French victory. In
these two engagements the loss of Napoleon’s army is computed as having
been between forty and fifty thousand men.
[14] Of the 600,000 men Napoleon is believed to have, first and last,
led into Russia, only about 12,000, in a wholly disorganized condition,
reached the Niemen. The French army was virtually destroyed. Napoleon
got to Paris December 18, 1812, and again took the field at the head of
a fresh army of about 700,000 men, the following April, fighting the
battle of Lützen May 2.
[15] The battle of Leipsic, resulting in the total defeat of the French
army under Napoleon, with a loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners of
about 70,000 men, occurred October 16-19, 1813. Wellington, as the
result of his Peninsular campaign, entered French territory on the
seventh of the same month.
[16] Henry IV, Part I, Act V, Sc. 4.
[17] The Fontainebleau abdication of the emperor had taken place on the
eleventh of April. Napoleon had reached Elba, after his abdication, on
the fourth of May, eight days before the date of this letter.
[18] William Shaw Cathcart, created Earl Cathcart July 16, 1814. He had
served in the American Revolutionary War 1777-1780. He was Ambassador
from the Court of St. James’s to that of Russia in 1812-1814.
[19] Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de Staël-Holstein, better
known as Madame de Staël, was born at Paris, April 22, 1766, and died
there July 14, 1817. Exiled from France in 1812 by order of Napoleon,
she visited Austria, Russia, Sweden, and England. She was then
forty-six years of age, and at the height of her great reputation.
The following letter was written by John Quincy Adams to his brother,
Thomas Boylston Adams, in the latter part of November, 1812, but the
interviews described and the conversations related had taken place on
the sixth and the eighth of the previous September.
[20] The battle of Salamanca, between the British army, under the Duke
of Wellington, and the French army, under Marshal Marmont, was fought
July 22, 1812. The bombardment of Copenhagen under the command of Lord
Cathcart had occurred in September, 1807.
[21] “The Mihavansa,” Wiiesinha’s translation.
[22] Reprinted from “Scribner’s Monthly” (now ~The Century~) for April,
1874, and included in “Old Creole Days,” by George W. Cable. (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons.)
[23] “Wanted: Straight Thinking about Militant Suffragists.” See
also previous editorial articles of the same tenor: “Grace before
Lawlessness” (March, 1912) and “Teaching Violence to Women” (May, 1912).