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[EXTRACT.]
NORFOLK, AUGUST 24, 1819.
My Dear Commodore: Nothing had transpired here previous to my arrival, on the subject of the correspondence; but a Lady, a Miss – , I think her name is, from Hampton, has stated, that a correspondence had taken place between you and B. which she feared would end in a meeting. The fears of this lady are at direct variance with the opinion of your friends here, who think that he does not purpose saying more on the subject.
As it seems that it was known at Hampton, and even here, that letters had passed between you and B. may I venture to ask you to send a copy of them to Mr. Tazewell, who I have just left. He will, with great pleasure, he says, attend to your wishes.
Receive the best wishes of your friend,W. CARTER.
Commodore Decatur.
No. 7
WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER, 1819.
Sir: Since my communication to you of the 31st ult. I have been informed by a gentleman entitled to the fullest credit, that you were not afloat till after the peace; consequently, the report which I noticed of your having sailed under British license must be unfounded.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,STEPHEN DECATUR.
Commodore Jas. Barron.
No. 8
HAMPTON, NOVEMBER 20, 1819.
Sir: Unavoidable interruption has prevented my answering your two last communications as early as it was my wish to have done, but in a few days you shall have my reply.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,JAS. BARRON.
Commodore Stephen Decatur.
No. 9
HAMPTON, NOVEMBER 30, 1819.
Sir: I did not receive, until Tuesday, the 9th inst. your very lengthy, elaborate, and historical reply, without date, to my letter to you of the 23d ultimo; which, from its nature and object, did not, I conceive, require that you should have entered so much into detail, in defence of the hostile and unmanly course you have pursued towards me, since the "affair of the Chesapeake," as you term it. A much more laconic answer would have served my purpose, which, for the present, is nothing more than to obtain at your hands honorable redress for the accumulated insults which you, sir, in particular, above all my enemies, have attempted to heap upon me, in every shape in which they could be offered. Your last voluminous letter is alone sufficient proof, if none other existed, of the rancorous disposition you entertain towards me, and the extent to which you have carried it. That letter I should no otherwise notice, than merely to inform you it had reached me, and that I am prepared to meet you in the field upon any thing like fair and equal grounds; but, inasmuch as you have intimated that our correspondence is to go before the public, I feel it a duty I owe to myself, and to the world, to reply particularly to the many calumnious charges and aspersions with which your "dispassionate and historical notice" of my communication so abundantly teems; wishing you, sir, at the same time, "distinctly to understand" that it is not for you alone, or to justify myself in your estimation, that I take this course. You have dwelt much upon our "June correspondence," as you stile it, and have made many quotations from it. I deem it unnecessary, however, to advert to it, further than to remark, that, although "nearly four months" did intervene between that correspondence and my letter of the 23d ultimo, my silence arose not from any misapprehension of the purport of your contumacious "underscored" remarks, nor from the malicious designs they indicated, nor from a tame disposition to yield quietly to the operation which either might have against me; but, from a tedious and painful indisposition, which confined me to my bed, the chief part of that period, as is well known to almost every person here. I anticipated, however, from what I had found you capable of doing to my injury, the use to which you would endeavour to pervert that correspondence; and have not at all been disappointed. So soon as I was well enough, and heard of your machinations against me, I lost no time in addressing to you my letter of the 23d ultimo; your reply to which I have now more particularly to notice. I have not said, nor did I mean to convey such an idea, nor will my letter bear the interpretation, that your forwarding to Norfolk, our "June correspondence," had, "in any degree, alienated my friends from me;" but, that it was sent down there with that view. It is a source of great consolation to me, sir, to know, that I have more friends, both in and out of the navy, than you are aware of; and that it is not in your power, great as you may imagine your official influence to be, to deprive me of their good opinion and affection. As to the reason which seems to have prompted you to send that correspondence to Norfolk, "that a female of my acquaintance had stated that such an one had taken place," I will only remark, that she did not derive her information from me: that it has always been, and ever will be, with me, a principle, to touch as delicately as possible, upon reports said to come from females, intended to affect injuriously the character of any one; and that, in a correspondence like the present, highly as I estimate the sex, I should never think of introducing them as authority. Females, sir, have nothing, or ought to have nothing to do in controversies of this kind. In speaking of the court martial which sat upon my trial, I have cast no imputation or reflection upon the members individually who composed it (saving yourself,) which required that you should attempt a vindication of their proceedings; champion as you are, and hostile as some of them may have been to me: nor does the language of my letter warrant any such inference. I merely meant to point out to you, sir, what you appear to have been incapable of perceiving: the indelicacy of your conduct, (to say the least of it) in hunting me out as an object for malignant persecution, after having acted as one of my judges, and giving your voice in favour of a sentence against me, which I cannot avoid repeating, was "cruel and unmerited." It is the privilege, sir, of a man, deeply injured as I have been by that decision, and conscious of his not deserving it, as I feel myself, to remonstrate against it; and I have taken the liberty to exercise that privilege.
You say that "the proceedings of the Court have been approved by the Chief Magistrate of our country, that the nation approved of them, and that the sentence has been carried into effect." It is true the President of the United States did approve of that sentence, and that it was carried into effect – full and complete effect, which I should have supposed ought to have glutted the envious and vengeful disposition of your heart; but I deny that the nation has approved of that sentence, and as an appeal appears likely to be made to them, I am willing to submit the question. The part you took on that occasion, it was totally unnecessary, I assure you, "to revive in my recollection;" it is indelibly imprinted on my mind, and can never, while I have life, be erased. You acknowledge you were present at the Court of Inquiry in my case, "heard the evidence for and against me, and had, therefore, formed and expressed an opinion unfavorable to me," and yet, your conscience was made of such pliable materials, that, because the then "honorable Secretary of the Navy was pleased to insist on your serving as a member of the Court Martial, and because I did not protest against it," you conceive that "duty constrained you, however unpleasant, to take your seat as a member," although you were to act under the solemn sanction of an oath, to render me impartial justice upon the very testimony which had been delivered in your hearing before the Court of Inquiry, and from which you "drew an opinion, altogether unfavorable to me." How such conduct can be reconciled with the principles of common honor and justice, is to me inexplicable. Under such circumstances, no consideration, no power or authority on earth, could, or ought to, have forced any liberal high minded man to sit in a case which he had prejudged, and, to retort upon you your own expressions, you must have been "incapable of seeing the glaring impropriety of your conduct, for which, although you do not conceive yourself in any way accountable to me," I hope you will be able to account for it with your God, and your conscience.
You say, between you and myself, there never has been a personal difference, "and you disclaim all personal enmity towards me." If every step you have taken – every word you have uttered, and every line you have written, in relation to me – if your own admission of the very frequent and free conversations you have had respecting me, and my conduct, "since the affair of the Chesapeake," bear not the plainest stamp of personal hostility, I know not the meaning of such terms; were you not under the influence of feelings of this sort, why not, in your official capacity, call me, or have me brought, before a proper tribunal, to answer the charges you have preferred against me, and thereby giving me a chance of defending myself? Why speak injuriously of me to junior officers, "which you do not deny?" Why the "many frequent and free conversations respecting me and my conduct," which you have taken so much pains to underscore? Why use the insulting expression, that you "entertained, and still do entertain, the opinion that my conduct, as an officer, since that 'affair' has been such as ought forever to bar my readmission into the service," and that, in endeavoring to prevent it, "you conceive you were performing a duty you owe to the service, and were contributing to its respectability?" Why the threat, that if I continued the "efforts" you say I have been making, to be "re-employed" you "certainly should be constrained to continue the expression of those opinions?"
Does not all this, together with the whole tenor and tendency of your letter, manifest the most marked personal animosity against me, which an honorable man, acting under a sense of public duty by which you profess to "have been hitherto actuated," would disdain even to shew, much more to feel?
I shall now, sir, take up the specific charges you have alleged against me, and shall notice them in the order in which they stand. The first is one of a very heinous character. It is, that "I proceeded in a merchant brig to Pernambuco." Could I, sir, during the period of my suspension, have gone any where in a national vessel? Could I, with what was due to my family, have remained idle? The sentence of the Court deprived them of the principal means of subsistence. I was therefore compelled to resort to that description of employment with which I was best acquainted; and on this subject you should have been silent. But you add, that the late Captain Lewis, of the Navy, who had it from a Mr. Goodwin, who heard it from Mr. Lyon, the British Consul at Pernambuco, with whom you undertake to say I lived, represented me as stating, "that, if the Chesapeake had been prepared for action, I would not have resisted the attack of the Leopard; assigning, as a reason, that I knew, as also did our government, that there were deserters on board the Chesapeake; and that I said to Mr. Lyon, further, that the President of the United States knew there were deserters on board, and of the intention of the British ship to take them, and that the ship was ordered out under these circumstances, with a view to bring about a contest which might embroil the two nations in a war."
