ever a warning to those who are tempted by plausible speculators, to violate the laws of their country or the duties of their citizenship.*

Under Jefferson's second presidency, George Clinton, of New York, was Vice-President. The Tripoli War ended in a satisfactory peace, Ohio was admitted as a state, and Louisiana, lately purchased from the French, taken into the Union. Towards the close of Jefferson's second term," the right of search," in a few instances exercised by French, and in many by English, ships, became the great foreign question; but it was reserved for his predecessor to settle that dispute.

In 1808, Madison succeeded to the presidency, and for three years exhausted negotiation in attempts at a peaceable solution. Between 1803 and 1810 nine hundred American ships had been seized, searched, or detained. In 1811, Madison sent his "war message" to Congress, the army was raised to 35,000 men, the navy equipped for active service, and a loan of $11,000,000 raised for the purposes of the war. In February, 1812, John Henry communicated to the President that, in 1809, he had been employed, by the governor of Canada, in a secret intrigue to separate New England from the Union. The documents connected with Henry's disclosure stimulated the war spirit, and in February, 1812, hostilities actually commenced. General Dearborn, of Massachusetts, was appointed commander-in-chief; Pinckney, major general; and Wilkinson, Hull, Hampton, and Bloomfield, the first brigadiers.

The chairman of the Senate committee on foreign affairs, at this time, was John Smilie, a native of Ireland. He was born in Newtownards, County Down, and had fought in the Revolutionary War. From that time, "he had never been out of the public service," until the hour of his death. In 1802, he had brought in the bill repealing the Adams Alien Law, and, in 1812, he re

* Burr was discharged on the ground that the evidence was insufficient. Mrs. Blennerhassett, his victim, died some short time since, in New York, in great poverty, and was buried by the charity of some former Irish friends

ported a bill empowering the President to raise a temporary army for the war with Great Britain. On the last day of that year, at the age of seventy-four, he died at Washington, leaving a character, second to none of his contemporaries, for fidelity and usefulness in the public service.

The successor of John Smilie was John Caldwell Calhoun, whose province it was to vindicate the report of his venerable predecessor. Mr. Calhoun was the son of Patrick Calhoun, an emigrant from Donegal, in Ireland, to South Carolina, born March 18th, 1782. At that time Mr. Calhoun was in the meridian of his fame, and of his whole powers of mind. His defence of the war, in reply to John Randolph, placed him among the first men of his generation, a position which he justly held till the close of his long public life.

The war now declared should necessarily be a naval, as well as a military, struggle, and a natural anxiety for the result thrilled the hearts of all Americans, on receiving the "war message" of Madison.

*National Intelligencer, Dec. 31st, 1812.

9

CHAPTER XIV.

THE IRISH IN THE AMERICAN NAVY DURING THE WAR OF 1812-15 -ORIGIN OF THE WAR-CAPTAIN BOYLE'S CRUISE CAPTAIN BLAKELY COMMODORES SHAW, MACDONOUGH, AND STEWART.

THE war had its origin in aggressions which had become intolerable. American seamen were pressed and American ships searched in British waters and on the high seas, at least a thousand times, before President Madison sent his "war message" to Congress, and when at last war was proclaimed, the favorite motto of many a ship was "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights."

The West Indian waters, being the confine of the two fleets, was the scene of some of the first and fiercest of the sea-fights of this war. One of the most memorable of these was the action fought between Captain Boyle's ship, the Comet, (twelve guns and one hundred and twenty men,) and three British vessels, convoyed by a Portuguese ship-of-war. The Portuguese ship carried twenty thirty-two pounders; the British, twenty guns between them. By superior sailing and manoeuvring, the Comet cut off the British ships, and disabled them one by one. Two of them he carried as prizes into Pernambuco, the third foundered, and the Portuguese retreated under cover of the night. On the same cruise, Captain Boyle captured the British ship Aberdeen, of eight guns, and two others of ten guns each. He then returned to the United States, escaped the British squadron in the Chesapeake, and reached Baltimore in safety. Captain Boyle was of Irish birth, but his after career is unknown to us.*

An Irishman, Captain Leavins, of the trading schooner Santee, of Charleston, being captured at sea, in, August, was sent in his own vessel, under charge of a British

"Sketches of the Late War," (Rutland, Vt.,) 1815, p. 330.

crew, to Bermuda. Rising singly on them at night, he wounded two badly, and compelled the other three to work the vessel back to Charleston, where he arrived amid universal acclamations.*

Captain Johnston Blakely was born in Seaford, County Down, Ireland, in October, 1781. His father soon after emigrated to this country; but in South Carolina, the family died, one by one, leaving young Blakely alone in the world. While at school, in 1799, the orphan had the additional misfortune to lose the remnant of property left him, and, in 1800, a friend of his family procured him a midshipman's warrant. In 1813, he served in the Enterprise, and, in the beginning of 1814, was promoted to the command of the Wasp. Soon after, he fell in with the British ship Reindeer, in latitude 48° 36′ north, and, after an action of nineteen minutes, captured her. The American loss was twenty-one killed and wounded, the British, sixty-seven. In August, 1814, he captured a British merchant-ship under convoy, and, on the first of September, the Avon also struck her flag to him. Before he could take possession of the Avon, a fresh British ship arrived, and Blakely, whose ship was somewhat damaged, was obliged to sheer off. This is the last authentic account of him. His ship was spoken off the Azores, and was supposed to have foundered at sea. All else is only conceit and conjecture. "But whatever may have been the fate of Blakely," says Dr. Frost, "this much is certain, that he will, to use his own expression, be classed among those names that stand so high.' The lustre of his exploits, not less than the interest excited by those who remember how, in his very boyhood, he was left, without a single being around him with whom he could claim kindred blood, - how, by his merit, he obtained friends, and conferred honor on that country which was not only his parent, but has become the parent of his only child,—and how, last of all, he perished, -God only knows where and how, has all given to

* "Sketches of the Late War," p. 441.

his character, his history, his achievements, and his fate, a romantic interest, marking the name of Blakely for lasting and affectionate remembrance."*

One more fact (and it is a great one) we have to connect with his name. The Legislature of North Carolina, in December, 1816, "Resolved unanimously, That Captain Blakely's child be educated at the expense of this state; and that Mrs. Blakely be requested to draw on the treasurer of this state, from time to time, for such sums of money as shall be required for the education of the said child."

John Shaw, a native of Mountmellick, emigrated in 1790 to Philadelphia, being then seventeen years of age. In 1798, in the quasi French war, he was appointed to command the armed schooner Enterprise, with a crew of seventy-six men. In six months, his schooner captured eight French privateers, or letters of marque. In 1801, peace was concluded with the French Directory, and Mr. Shaw retired with the grade and half-pay of lieutenant. In 1806, when Burr was fitting out his secret expedition in the Ohio valley, he got command of the United States flotilla before Natchez, and, when that conspiracy exploded, was appointed by Jefferson to the command of the navy yard at Norfolk, Virginia, with the rank of post-captain. In the war of 1812, he ranked as commodore, and commanded, for a year, the United States squadron in the Mediterranean. After the war, he had charge of the navy yard at Charlestown, and died in September, 1823, at Philadelphia. Mr. Fenimore Cooper speaks of him as "second to none on the list of gallant seamen with which the present navy of the Republic commenced its brilliant career," as personally, "a man of fine presence, beloved by those who served under him."

Thomas McDonough, brother to James, mentioned in. the war of Independence, was distinguished in 1805, in the attack on Tripoli. He was the second man to board

* Frost's Lives of the Commodores, p. 272.