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63. ROBERT FIELD STOCKTON. 



ROBERT FIELD STOCKTON was born at Princeton, New Jersey, August 20, 

 1795. As a small boy he showed personal courage, a strong sense of honor, hatred 

 of injustice, generosity, and loyalty to friends. At school he was the champion 

 of the weak and won victories over the strong. He entered Princeton College 

 at 13 years of age and stood first in his class. He excelled in elocution and was 

 apt in language and mathematics. The Bible and the writings of Cicero, Shake- 

 speare, and Lord Bacon were his favorite books. One of his professors declared 

 he was the best-informed man he had ever met. He was habitually temperate. 

 He had ability for the law, but the war with England broke out before he was 

 graduated; he was fired with an ambition to excel Nelson and he entered the 

 navy as midshipman and cruised with Commodore Rodgers on the President 

 in 1812. When the President fought the Belvidere, Stockton won the sobriquet 

 "Fighting Bob," and this hung to him ever after. He was in the fight with the 

 Plantagenet (74 guns) near Boston for five hours. He went with Rodgers to 

 Washington to see Secretary of Navy Jones, and became Jones's aide, but he shortly 

 after resigned and went with Rodgers to defend Alexandria and later Baltimore. 

 He worked incessantly, building small craft, fire-boats, and rafts. In September 

 1814 he was commissioned lieutenant. Then came the war with Algiers. Stock- 

 ton on the Guerriere assisted in the capture of the Algerian flagship Mishouri. 

 Off the Spanish coast he drove an Algerian brig ashore, led the boarding party 

 in person, got the brig off the shoals, and sent her to a Spanish port. After the 

 war he became first lieutenant on the Erie. He now had some leisure and spent 

 it in studying common, martial, and international law and was called upon in 

 courts-martial. He worked for improved discipline and for the abolition of the 

 "cat." He also felt the humiliation of the arrogant attitude of the British naval 

 officers and did his best to end this. A Neapolitan supply-provider came on board 

 the Erie with credentials signed by an English naval officer which contained an 

 insulting remark on Yankee seamen. Stockton challenged the subscriber to a 

 duel or apology. They fought and Stockton hit the Englishman in the leg at the 

 first shot. Soon thereafter the Erie arrived at Gibraltar. Here he found that 

 an American merchant captain had been thrown into jail as a criminal for failure 

 to carry a lantern at night. The British officer called him a "damned Yankee 

 merchantman." Stockton challenged the English officer to a duel. He wounded 

 the officer and his seconds refused further fight except on their own terms. So 

 Stockton some time later fought on these terms and wounded the officer a second 

 time. The English tried to detain Stockton, who now saw that they were trying 

 to ensnare him. He knocked down one of the foot-guards, pulled another from 

 his horse, mounted the horse, and rode to his own men, who were waiting for him 

 on the shore. The governor of Gibraltar now proceeded to compose the difficulties 

 between the English and Americans. Stockton was opposed to dueling, but a duel 

 seemed the only method of putting the American navy right with the British. 



In 1821 Stockton was asked by Judge Washington and Francis Key to aid 

 the Colonization Society to secure a site in Africa. In a naval schooner he set 

 out to look for a healthy locality. Finally, at Cape Mesurado, he found a high, 

 undulating, and fertile country; he began to trade with the natives and finally 

 negotiated with King Peter and, despite the opposition of a powerful mulatto 

 slave-trader, secured the execution of a treaty by which Liberia was acquired; 



