The Man Without a Country | Page 6

ship. You will receive your written orders from the officer on duty here
this evening. The Court is adjourned without day."

I have always supposed that Colonel Morgan himself took the
proceedings of the court to Washington city, and explained them to Mr.
Jefferson. Certain it is that the President approved them,--certain, that
is, if I may believe the men who say they have seen his signature.
Before the "Nautilus" got round from New Orleans to the Northern
Atlantic coast with the prisoner on board, the sentence had been
approved, and he was a man without a country.
The plan then adopted was substantially the same which was
necessarily followed ever after. Perhaps it was suggested by the
necessity of sending him by water from Fort Adams and Orleans. The
Secretary of the Navy--it must have been the first Crowninshield,
though he is a man I do not remember--was requested to put Nolan on
board a government vessel bound on a long cruise, and to direct that he
should be only so far confined there as to make it certain that he never
saw or heard of the country. We had few long cruises then, and the
navy was very much out of favor; and as almost all of this story is
traditional, as I have explained, I do not know certainly what his first
cruise was. But the commander to whom he was intrusted,--perhaps it
was Tingey or Shaw, though I think it was one of the younger
men,--we are all old enough now,---regulated the etiquette and the
precautions of the affair, and according to his scheme they were carried
out, I suppose, till Nolan died.
When I was second officer of the "Intrepid," some thirty years after, I
saw the original paper of instructions. I have been sorry ever since that
I did not copy the whole of it. It ran, however, much in this way:--
"WASHINGTON (with a date, which must have been late in 1807).
"Sir,--You will receive from Lieutenant Neale the person of Philip
Nolan, late a lieutenant in the United States army.
"This person on his trial by court-martial expressed, with an oath, the
wish that he might 'never hear of the United States again.'
"The Court sentenced him to have his wish fulfilled.

"For the present, the execution of the order is intrusted by the President
to this Department.
"You will take the prisoner on board your ship, and keep him there with
such precautions as shall prevent his escape.
"You will provide him with such quarters, rations, and clothing as
would be proper for an officer of his late rank, if he were a passenger
on your vessel on the business of his Government.
"The gentlemen on board will make any arrangements agreeable to
themselves regarding his society. He is to be exposed to no indignity of
any kind, nor is he ever unnecessarily to be reminded that he is a
prisoner.
"But under no circumstances is he ever to hear of his country or to see
any information regarding it; and you will especially caution all the
officers under your command to take care, that, in the various
indulgences which may be granted, this rule, in which his punishment
is involved, shall not be broken.
"It is the intention of the Government 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. SOUTHARD, for the "Secretary of the Navy"
If I had only preserved the whole of this paper, there would be no break
in the beginning of my sketch of this story. For Captain Shaw, if it were
he, handed it to his successor in the charge, and he to his, and I suppose
the commander of the "Levant" has it to-day as his authority for
keeping this man in this mild custody.
The rule adopted on board the ships on which I have met "the man
without a country" was, I think, transmitted from the beginning. No
mess liked to have him permanently, because his presence cut off all
talk of home or of the prospect of return, of politics or letters, of peace
or of war,--cut off more than half the talk men liked to have at sea. But

it was always thought too hard that he should never meet the rest of us,
except to touch hats, and we finally sank into one system. He was not
permitted to talk with the men, unless an officer was by. With officers
he had unrestrained intercourse, as far as they and he chose. But he
grew shy, though he had favorites: I was one. Then the captain always
asked him to dinner on Monday. Every mess in succession took up