SIR: Your letter of the 23d inst. has been duly received. Prior to
giving it that reply which I intend, its contents suggest the necessity
of referring to our June correspondence.
On the 12th June last, you addressed to me a note, inquiring whether I
had said that "I could insult you with impunity." On the 17th June, I
wrote you, in reply, as follows: "Whatever I may have _thought or said
in the very frequent and free conversations I have had respecting you
and your conduct_, I feel a thorough conviction that I never could have
been guilty of so much egotism, as to say that _I_ could insult you, or
any other man, with impunity."
On the 25th of June, you again wrote to me, and stated, that the report
on which you had grounded your query of 12th June, "could not now be
traced to its origin," and your letter is concluded in the following
words: "your declaration, if I understand it correctly, relieves my mind
from the apprehension that you had so degraded my character, as I had
been induced to allege." Immediately on receiving your letter of the
25th of June, I wrote to you, 29th June, as follows: "As you have
expressed yourself doubtfully as to your correct understanding of my
letter of the 17th June, I have now to state, and I request you to
understand, distinctly, that I meant _no more_ than to disclaim the
_specific_ and _particular_ expression, to which your inquiry was
directed, to wit: "that I had said that I could insult you with
impunity." Here ended our June correspondence, and, with it all kind of
communication, till the date of your letter of the 23d inst. which I
shall now proceed to notice.
Nearly four months having elapsed since the date of our last
correspondence, your letter was unexpected to me, particularly as the
terms used by you, in the conclusion of your letter to me of 25th June,
and your silence since receiving my letter of the 29th June, indicated,
as I thought, satisfaction on your part. But, it seems that you consider
yourself aggrieved by my sending our June correspondence to Norfolk. I
did not send the June correspondence to Norfolk, until three months had
expired after your last communication, and not then, until I had been
informed by a captain of the navy, that a female of your acquaintance
had stated, that such a correspondence had taken place.[1] If that
correspondence has, in any degree, "alienated your friends from you,"
such effect is to be attributed to the correspondence itself. I thought
the papers would speak for themselves, and sent them without written
comment.
[1] See the extracts from Capt. Carter's letter, post. page 13.
With respect to the court martial upon you for the affair of the
Chesapeake, to which you have been pleased to refer, I shall not treat
the officers, who composed that court, with so much disrespect, as to
attempt a vindication of their proceedings. The chief magistrate of our
country approved them; the nation approved them; and the sentence has
been carried into effect. But, sir, there is a part of my conduct, on
that occasion, which it does not appear irrelevant to revive in your
recollection. It is this; I was present at the court of inquiry upon
you, and heard the evidence then adduced for and against you; thence I
drew an opinion altogether unfavorable to you; and, when I was called
upon, by the Secretary of the Navy, to act as a member of the court
martial ordered for your trial, I begged to be excused the duty, on the
ground of my having formed such an opinion. The honorable Secretary was
pleased to insist on my serving; still anxious to be relieved from this
service, I did, prior to taking my seat as a member of the court,
communicate to your able advocate, general Taylor, the opinion I had
formed, and my correspondence with the Navy Department upon the subject,
in order to afford you an opportunity, should you deem it expedient, to
protest against my being a member, on the ground of my not only having
formed, but _expressed_ an opinion unfavorable to you. You did not
protest against my being a member. Duty constrained me, however
unpleasant it was, to take my seat as a member; I did so, and discharged
the duty imposed upon me. You, I find, are incapable of estimating the
motives which guided my conduct in this transaction.
For my conduct as a member of that court martial, I do not consider
myself as, in any way, accountable to _you_. But, sir, you have thought
fit to deduce, from your impressions of my conduct as a member of that
court martial, inferences of personal hostility towards you. Influenced
by feelings thence arising, you commenced the June correspondence, a
correspondence which I had hoped would have terminated our
communications.
Between you and myself there never has been a personal difference; but
I have entertained, and do still entertain the opinion, that your
conduct as an officer, since the affair of the Chesapeake, has been such
as ought to forever bar your readmission into the service.
In my letter to you, of the 17th June, although I disavowed the
_particular expressions_ to which you invited my attention, candor
required that I should apprise you of my not having been silent
respecting you. I informed you that I had had _very frequent and free
conversations respecting you and your conduct_; and the words were
underscored, that they might not fail to attract your particular
attention. Had you have asked what those frequent and free conversations
were, I should, with the same frankness, have told you; but, instead of
making a demand of this kind, you reply to my letter of 17th June, "That
my declaration, if correctly understood by you, relieved your mind," &c.
That you might correctly understand what I did mean, I addressed you as
before observed, on the 29th June, and endeavored, by _underscoring_
certain precise terms, to convey to you my precise meaning. To this last
letter I never received a reply.
Under these circumstances, I have judged it expedient at this time, to
state, as distinctly as may be in my power, the facts upon which I
ground the unfavourable opinion which I entertain, and have expressed,
of your conduct as an officer, since the court martial upon you; while I
disclaim all personal enmity towards you.
Some time after you had been suspended from the service, for your
conduct in the affair of the Chesapeake, you proceeded, in a merchant
brig, from Norfolk to Pernambuco; and by a communication from the late
Captain Lewis, whose honor and veracity were never yet questioned, it
appears--that you stated to Mr. Lyon, the _British consul_ at
Pernambuco, with whom you lived, "That if the Chesapeake had been
prepared for action, you would not have resisted the attack of the
Leopard; assigning, as a reason, that you knew, (as did also our
government,) there were deserters on board your ship; that the President
of the United States knew there were deserters on board, and of the
intention of the British to take them; and that the President caused you
to go out in a defenceless state, for the express purpose of having your
ship attacked and disgraced, and thus attain his favorite object of
involving the United States in a war with Great Britain." For
confirmation of this information, Captain Lewis refers to Mr. Thomas
Goodwin, of Baltimore, the brother of Captain Ridgely of the Navy, who
received it from Mr. Lyon himself. Reference was made to Mr. Goodwin,
who, in an official communication, confirmed all that Captain Lewis had
said. The veracity and respectability of Mr. Goodwin are also beyond
question. You will be enabled to judge of the impression made upon
Captain Lewis' mind, by the following strong remarks he made on the
subject:
"I am now convinced that Barron is a traitor, for I can call by no other
name a man who would talk in this way to an Englishman, and an
Englishman in office."
These communications are now in the archives of the Navy Department.
If, sir, the affair of the Chesapeake excited the indignant feelings of
the nation towards Great Britain; and was, as every one admits, one of
the principal causes which produced the late war, did it not behove you
to take an active part in the war, for your own sake?--Patriotism out of
the question! But, sir, instead of finding you in the foremost ranks, on
an occasion which so emphatically demanded your best exertions, it is
said, and is credited, that you were, after the commencement of the war,
to be found in the command of a vessel sailing under _British license_!
Though urged, by your _friends_, to avail yourself of some one of the
opportunities which were every day occurring in privateers, or other
fast sailing merchant vessels, sailing from France, and other places, to
return to your country during the war; it is not known that you
manifested a disposition to do so, excepting in the single instance by
the _cartel_ John Adams, in which vessel, you must have known, you could
not be permitted to return, without violating her character as a cartel.
You say you have been oppressed. You know, sir, that, by absenting
yourself, as you did for years, from the country, without leave from the
government, you subjected yourself to be stricken from the rolls. You
know, also, that, by the 10th article of the act for the better
government of the Navy, all persons in the Navy holding intercourse with
an enemy, become subject to the severest punishment known to our laws.
You have not, for the offences before stated, to my knowledge, received
even a reprimand; and I do know, that your pay, even during your
absence, has been continued to you.
As to my having spoken of you injuriously to "junior officers," I have
to remark, that such is the state of our service that we have but few
seniors. If I speak with officers at all, the probability is, it will be
with a junior.
On your return to this country, your efforts to re-establish yourself in
the service were known, and became a subject of conversation with
officers as well as others. In the many and _free_ conversations I have
had respecting you and your conduct, I have said, for the causes above
enumerated, that, in my opinion, you ought not to be received again into
the naval service; that there was not employment for all the officers
who had faithfully discharged their duty to their country in the hour of
trial; and that it would be doing an act of injustice to employ you, to
the exclusion of any one of them. In speaking thus, and endeavoring to
prevent your re-admission, I conceive that I was performing a duty I owe
to the service; that I was contributing to the preservation of its
respectability. Had you have made no effort to be re-employed, after the
war, it is more than probable I might not have spoken of you. If you
continue your efforts, I shall certainly, from the same feelings of
public duty by which I have hitherto been actuated, be constrained to
continue the expression of my opinions; and I can assure you, that, in
the interchange of opinions with other officers respecting you, I have
never met with more than one who did not entirely concur with me.
The objects of your communication of the 23d, as expressed by you, now
claim my notice. You profess to consider me as having given you "an
invitation." You say that you have been told, that I have "tauntingly
and boastingly observed, that I would cheerfully meet you in the field,
and hoped you would yet act like a man."
One would naturally have supposed, that, after having been so recently
led into an error by "rumors" which could not be traced, you would have
received, with some caution, subsequent rumors; at all events that you
would have endeavored to have traced them, before again venturing to act
upon them as if they were true. Had you have pursued this course, you
would have discovered, that the latter rumors were equally unfounded as
the former.
I never invited you to the field; nor have I expressed a hope that you
would call me out. I was informed by a gentleman with whom you had
conferred upon the subject, that you left Norfolk for this place,
somtime before our June correspondence, with the intention of calling me
out. I then stated to that gentleman, as I have to all others with whom
I have conversed upon the subject, that, if you made the call, I would
meet you; but that, on all scores, I should be much better pleased, to
have nothing to do with you. I do not think that fighting duels, under
any circumstances, can raise the reputation of any man, and have long
since discovered, that it is not even an unerring criterion of personal
courage. I should regret the necessity of fighting with any man; but, in
my opinion, the man who makes _arms his profession_, is not at liberty
to decline an invitation from any person, who is not so far degraded, as
to be beneath his notice. Having incautiously said I would meet you, I
will not now consider this to be your case, although many think so; and
if I had not pledged myself, I might reconsider the case.
As to "weapons, place, and distance," if we are to meet, those points
will, as is usual, be committed to the friend I may select on the
occasion. As far, however, as it may be left to me, not having any
particular prejudice in favor of any particular arm, distance, or mode,
(but, on the contrary, disliking them all,) I should not be found
fastidious on those points, but should be rather disposed to yield you
any little advantage of this kind. As to my skill in the use of the
pistol, it exists more in your imagination than in reality; for the last
twenty years I have had but little practice; and the disparity in our
ages, to which you have been pleased to refer, is, I believe, not more
than five or six years. It would have been out of the common course of
nature, if the vision of either of us had been improved by years.
From your manner of proceeding, it appears to me, that you have come to
the determination to fight some one, and that you have selected me for
that purpose; and I must take leave to observe, that your object would
have been better attained, had you have made this decision during our
late war, when your fighting might have benefitted your country as well
as yourself. The style of your communication, and the matter, did not
deserve so dispassionate and historical a notice as I have given it; and
had I believed it would receive no other inspection than yours, I should
have spared myself the trouble. The course I adopted with our former
correspondence, I shall pursue with this, if I shall deem it expedient.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
STEPHEN DECATUR.
To Commodore JAMES BARRON,
_Hampton, Virginia_.
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