his money to the Government at the present time, will forfeit all claim to common honesty and common courtesy among all true friends of the country."

New York was ready to do and suffer for the cause of the Union. Her Governor, Tompkins, devoted his whole energies to aiding the national Government in the day of its peril. But at the spring election of 1813 the Federalists elected a majority to the Assembly. In the Senate there were a majority of Democrats, headed by Mr. Van Buren. To aid the national Government to sustain itself against the machinations of the Federalists and the New England banks, a joint resolution was offered in the Senate, and advocated with great power by Mr. Van Buren, General Root, and Governor Lewis, to loan the nation $500,000. It passed the Senate. In the House it met the opposition of Abram Van Vechten, Elisha Williams, Daniel Cady, and others, and was lost. From these proceedings it is perfectly apparent that the object of the Federalists was to cripple the national Government, and force it to yield to the power of Great Britain, to the great disgrace of the nation, and the destruction of the rights of the people.

We have thus given merely specimens of what was said and done by the Federalists, to prevent the Government from effecting and realizing loans. Such things were in harmony with antiDemocratic principles, which do not look to the protection of the national honor as a means of securing the prosperity and happiness of individuals. Crippling and dishonoring the Government is what Democratic principles emphatically condemn. Where would the Government have been, and what would have been the condition of the people at large, if the Federalists had been permitted to control and apply their theories? Both would have been crushed, and patriotism would have wept over the ruin.

23. THE NAVY AND NAVAL HEROES.

At the commencement of the War of the Revolution we had no navy, and at its close but a small one. Afterward, we were struggling under a heavy debt, growing out of that war, and it was with difficulty that we met our engagements, although our taxes were high. But, by 1801, we had enlarged our navy to an

extent that enabled us to crush out the piratical Barbary powers. This war was prolific in the birth of naval heroes, whose manhood appeared in full vigor, strength, and splendor in the War of 1812. While our public debt pressed heavily, and no foreign war was apprehended, Mr. Jefferson's policy was to avoid taxation as far as possible. He secured our coast against all possible invasion by the use of gunboats, which, during the recent war, proved so efficient and useful, at a very moderate expense.

His

He feared that our means were insufficient to build a navy to cope with Great Britain on the seas, where she had long ruled as mistress; and adopted the conclusion that for defensive purposes, gunboats, considering their cost, were preferable. adversaries ridiculed his gunboat system, and demanded the construction of a large, stately navy, which alone could be used against France, if at war with her, when we neither had the means to build, equip, nor sailors to man it. As war became inevitable, our navy grew, and the number of our sailors increased, while the Tripolitan war had developed talent to command it. Although the British navy was large and scattered over old Ocean, her commerce was larger, and more widely spread, and consequently more exposed to capture. Her great strength carried with it a greater weakness. Our navy, to say nothing of our privateers, carried havoc into her commerce, and, when it met only equals, it triumphed over them. Our commerce, owing to Mr. Jefferson's restrictive policy, had not become so expanded as to make a large feast for the British lion. The limits prescribed to this work will not permit our writing our naval history of that period. But it is due to those brave spirits who covered our navy with glory and filled our land with joy, to give a brief account of several of them. We shall not attempt to specify their opinions upon the political questions which divided Congress. They clung to their country, heroically performed their duty, and hazarded their lives and honor in favor of the cause upon which the then ascendency of the Democratic party depended. They fought like heroes, and history will embalm their names with those Democrats in whose hands the independence and destiny of our nation then rested.

24.-WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE.

Commodore Bainbridge was born at Princeton, New Jersey, in 1774. Life on the ocean had charms for him, and at an early age he engaged in the merchant service. His energy, good character, and abilities, soon raised him to a high command. Such was his reputation in 1798, when our Government was preparing to meet our difficulties with France, that he was commissioned as a lieutenant, and appointed to the command of the naval schooner Retaliation. In 1800 he was promoted to a captaincy, and placed in command of the frigate George Washington. He was soon ordered to the humiliating service of carrying tribute from our Government to that of Algiers, and while there was forced by the Algerine authorities to convey presents to Constantinople. In 1803 he sailed in the Philadelphia for the Mediterranean, and while there captured a Moorish frigate, and restored one of our merchant-vessels. This nipped Moorish piracy in the bud. When forming one of the blockading squadron off Tripoli his vessel ran aground, and after being nearly destroyed, he surrendered, and he and his men were taken and kept in prison nineteen months. When the War of 1812 was declared, naval men and civilians were divided upon the question of laying up our war-vessels, or permitting them to hazard an unequal conflict with the British navy. Bainbridge and Stewart induced Mr. Madison, contrary to the first views of his cabinet, to trust our little navy to Providence and good officers, and allow it to play its part in the great drama then being performed. No true-hearted American, however, regretted this advice or determination.

In September, 1812, Bainbridge was appointed to the command of a small squadron, the Constitution being his flag-ship. When off the coast of St. Salvador, Brazil, while separated from his command, he fell in with the British frigate Java, and, after an action of one hour and fifty-five minutes, captured her. The Java lost 174 men, and the Constitution only 9. The Java had not a spar standing, and was incapable of being taken into port. The Constitution was little damaged. The comparative destruction shows the superiority of Bainbridge's gunnery. Bainbridge

was severely wounded, and his adversary, Captain Lambert, fatally. On returning home, Bainbridge was everywhere received with demonstrations of joy. Congress voted him a gold medal, and a silver one to his men, and $50,000 as prize-money—the supposed value of the captured but sunken ship. Subsequently Bainbridge was employed in shore-duty, in navy-yards, and as president of the Board of Navy Commissioners. He died at Philadelphia in 1833. He was a tall, muscular, and well-proportioned man, with a piercing eye, an animated expression, and graceful and dignified motions. He was an excellent disciplinarian, and as an officer he had few superiors.

25.-CHARLES STEWART.

Stewart was born in Philadelphia, in 1778, and at the age of twenty entered the navy as a lieutenant, and first performed duty under Commodore Barry, on board the frigate United States. In 1800 he was appointed to the command of the schooner Experiment, on the West India station, to protect American seamen, which duty he performed to the satisfaction of all. He captured several French privateers, and recaptured many of our merchantmen which had been taken. He coöperated with Decatur in the destruction of the Philadelphia before Tripoli. He joined Bainbridge in inducing our Government to send our little navy to hold that of the British in check, and to cripple her extended commerce. In 1813 Stewart, while in command of the Constitution, captured the British schooner Pictou, and in 1814 the Cyane and Levant. The latter was a brilliant contest, and resulted so much to our credit and their disadvantage, that the British have never published an account of it. For these gallant acts Congress voted him a gold medal, and Pennsylvania a sword, and New York and Philadelphia bestowed civic honors. Wherever men collected, his laudation was sure to follow.

In 1814 Commodore Stewart took command of the Mediterranean squadron, the Franklin being his flag-ship. He left the station in 1820, and in 1821 hoisted his flag on the same ship in the Pacific, where he served three years. Subsequently he was one of the Board of Navy Commissioners, in which capacity he served

three years. He afterward had command of the Home squadron, and of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. In 1857 he was placed on the retired list, and then restored to active service under a special act of Congress, but subsequently retired at his own request, since which he has resided on his estate at Bordentown, New Jersey. He is the senior officer in the navy; and in his old age, as well as in active life, commands the esteem and respect of all who know him.

26.-STEPHEN DECATUR.

Stephen Decatur was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in 1779, and entered the navy as a midshipman in 1798, and sailed to the Mediterranean in 1801, in the Essex, under Commo dore Dale, as first lieutenant. At Malta he was insulted by a British officer. They fought, and the latter was killed. He afterward sailed in command of the Argus to Tripoli, and on his arrival was placed in command of the schooner Enterprise, and in a few minutes after captured a Tripolitan ketch in sight of the town. He soon conceived and executed the daring enterprise of capturing and destroying the frigate Philadelphia, then in the harbor, which was accomplished by aid of daring spirits, and among them Midshipman Charles Morris. At the attack upon Tripoli, Decatur had command of one division of the gunboats, where he won the admiration of the nation by his intrepidity. During the fight he was informed that his brother, who had captured one of the enemy's boats, had been treacherously slain by its commander. In an instant he hastened to overtake the assassins and avenge his brother's death. With no boat but his own, he pursued him beyond the line of the enemy, laid his boat alongside and threw himself, with eleven Americans, all he had left, on board the enemy's boat. The fight on deck lasted twenty minutes, and but four men remained unwounded. Decatur now singled out the commander for his special vengeance. His antagonist was armed with an espontoon, the head of which he sought to cut off, but his cutlass broke at the hilt, and he received a wound on his right arm and breast. They closed, and in the struggle both fell. The Turk endeavored to stab him with a dag