THE GLORY OF AMERICA; COMPRISING MEMOIRS OF THE LIVES AND GLORIOUS EXPLOITS OF SOME OF THE DISTINGUISHED OFFICERS ENGAGED IN THE LATE WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN. AMONG WHICH ARE Andrew Jackson, Richard Mentor Johnson, Stephen Decatur, David Porter, Zebulon Montgomery Pike, EMBELLISHED WITH PLATES FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS. BY R. THOMAS, A.-M. NEW YORK!" PUBLISHED BY EZRA STRONG, P 1843. En ered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1833, by Ezra Strong, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. IF, among readers, as some very shrewdly imagine, the greater part would willingly dispense with a preface, the fact is certain, that whatever may be their wishes, or, mayhap, their caprices, few authors or editors are willing to dispense with this preliminary to a book. My own plea -if plea be required-is necessity, a necessity growing out of the circumstances under which the work was performed; the writing of which is more for the edification. of the reader, than to please the fancy of the editor. Few, if any, who are not experimentally taught the lesson, have any adequate conception of the difficulties under which an editor labours, in compiling a work consisting of biographical sketches of various individuals, residing, or acting, in different sections of an extensive country, with few of whom he can be personally acquainted. If every Johnson has not a Boswell, neither has every Washington a Marshall and a Weems, nor every revolution a Thacher. But still biographers must toil, and the public will read; and till writers shall be endued with the power of ubiquity, and the gift of annihilating both time and space, errors will unavoidably occur in their works; the captious will cavil; and the ill natured, who perhaps can hardly pen a sentence of good English, will be furnished with abundant matter on which to vent their harmless venom. In preparing the following pages for publication, three points have been constantly in view: 1st. To obtain all the information relative to the different subjects, which was within reach; to compare and digest which has cost much labour and care. 2dly. To search for truth;and, 3dly, To choose the best language in which to convey the information thus obtained. The materials are principally gathered from the current publications of the day, which are sometimes too loosely written-at others, penned with evident partiality or prejudice, and occasionally so embellished with altiloquence, or garnished with superlatives, as to appear rather as the work of an exuberant imagination, than like a relation of substantial and indisputable facts. Amidst these various difficulties, more than human ken is requisite to guide the inquiring mind to the fount of truth. If, on this, or any other point, mistakes shall be discovered, the editor claims the meed furnished by the poet "Who does the best his circumstance allows, Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more." In the present enlightened age, perhaps an error in the use of language will be the least likely to escape censure -albeit, the most classical scholars often use the very rudiments of literature with the carelessness of sciolists. To these censures, should they pass on this work, the editor will certainly not plead ignorance. Confident of possessing the power to write correctly, and to thread the sense of the worst penned paragraphs-if sense they contain-in case of failure on this point, he will plead guilty. But, if the re-construction of whole paragraphs, which were too ill-constructed for emendation, and numerous marginal corrections, are any proof of good intention, and industry, the reasons for fault-finding on this score, will be "few and far between." One error relative to the facts as stated in the account of the capture of the President, has escaped in the progress of the work, which is here corrected. The Peacock and Hornet did not accompany the President, though their appointed rendezvous was at the same place. Other similar mistakes may probably have occurred, the impor tance of which, even if they should be detected, is of little consequence to the reader. A knowledge of the principal facts is all which the nature of the case requires. On a trial before a court martial, the case would assume a different aspect. Perhaps a better opportunity will not offer to remark on the general tendency of the martial spirit engendered by a state of warfare. We have seen its effects so far as "affairs of honour" are concerned. That duels which occur in the service are mostly the offspring of an overweening pride-jealousy of compeers in the race of glory -is equally obvious, as that the desire of distinction, perhaps, makes as many heroes as the love of country. So far as this principle animates to mortal combat, in so far does it detract from the merit supposed to actuate those who dare the "cannon's mouth" in defence of their country. That the power over life and limb, which is, perhaps unavoidably, connected with naval and military command, tends to sow the seeds of despotism--that those who find themselves invested with this power, often forget right—we have all seen, and thousands have felt it as a curse. That the compulsion to submit to that discipline which sinks the citizen into the mere soldier, is unfriendly to the development of the mental energies, and fatal to that self-respect which is uniformly accompanied by the higher virtues, is obvious at the first blush. To say nothing of the ether "thousand ills" of which war is |