88 HEREDITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NAVAL OFFICERS. 



in the Canton river and the forts in the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. Naval 

 vessels are not ordinarily able to reduce strong land fortifications, as Nelson found 

 to his sorrow at Teneriffe. It was highly audacious for Foote to bring his small 

 fleet close to such strong fortifications; he succeeded because his vessels were 

 the first naval ironclads in action. There was a good deal of this same self-reliance 

 combined with pertinacity in his father, Samuel A. Foote, who was speaker of the 

 Connecticut legislature, 1825-1826, and a member of Congress for three terms. He 

 then was sent to the United States Senate, where he introduced the resolution as 

 to the sale of public lands that was intended to raise the nullification doctrine and 

 which led to the famous debate between Hayne and Webster. He forced the states' 

 rights men to "show their colors." He became governor of Connecticut in 1834. 



Foote was a fighter, even as a boy, as we have seen. His mother's father, 

 Andrew Hull (1758-1827), became brigadier general of the Connecticut militia and 

 was a distinctly efficient officer. At his death he was marshal of Connecticut. 



Foote early declared his intention of going to sea, and at the age of 16 entered 

 the navy. His mother's father, General Andrew Hull, was a merchant in the 

 West India trade; he owned, among others, the brig Trenton, which was lost at 

 sea. In those days many merchants went themselves to sea, as supercargo, to 

 sell their merchandise and buy in exchange. Hull probably had a liking for the 

 sea. Andrew's father was also in the West India trade for a time with his father- 

 in-law and occasionally made voyages. Another grandson of General Andrew 

 Hull was in the navy for a time William Augustus Hitchcock, a son of Mary 

 Hull and William R. Hitchcock. 



General Andrew Hull had a second cousin, Joseph Hull, who during the 

 Revolutionary war commanded a flotilla on Long Island Sound and later engaged 

 in the whale fishery. His son, Isaac Hull (1773-1843), was born in Derby, Con- 

 necticut; with an "unconquerable passion for the sea," he became a cabin-boy on 

 a merchant ship at the age of 14 years. It is related that, when the vessel was 

 shipwrecked some two years later, young Hull saved the captain's life by sup- 

 porting him in the water until they reached shore. Given command of a ship 

 sailing to the West Indies, he gained such a reputation as a skillful mariner that, 

 on the organization of the United States navy in 1798, he was commissioned a 

 lieutenant and assigned to the Constitution. Sent by his captain, in 1799, to 

 "cut out" the French letter-of -marque Sandwich at Puerto Plata, he boarded 

 her successfully and spiked the guns of the land battery; but the illegal order and 

 its consequences cost the Government dearly. Hull commanded a ship in Preble's 

 squadron that was sent against the Barbary States. In 1811 he commanded 

 the Constitution, which came near to an action with the British. During the war of 

 1812 the Constitution destroyed the Guerriere. After the war Hull served on the 

 Navy Board and in charge of navy yards. He died in Philadelphia at the age of 70. 



Foote loved fun from boyhood up, as we have seen. His brother, John 

 Alfred Foote (1803-1891), was also especially fond of fun. Of his father it is said: 

 "There was a vein of kindly humor in his make-up." 



Foote was markedly pious, as shown repeatedly in the above history. His 

 father, too, was a pious man and both the father's father and the father's mother's 

 father became pastors of the Congregational Church at Cheshire, Connecticut. 



The father of the propositus, Governor Samuel Augustus Foote, had a 

 remarkably good heredity, especially on the mother's side. His mother's father, 

 Samuel Hall (1695-1776), was a graduate of Yale College, sometime tutor there, 



