468 LETTERS OF A CITIZEN. 



long service and unquestionable ability, you committed the outrage 

 upon the navy, for the defence of which your contemptible proclama- 

 tion above transcribed was put forth ! This was done at a time, too, 

 when the authority of the president was invoked to silence older offi- 

 cers claiming the command. Sir, the high probability that your offi- 

 cial action in this matter will not be imitated hereafter, induces me 

 to omit much that occurred about this time. I need not here exam- 

 ine the law which you violated, nor stop to refute the silly defence 

 that in the selection of a lieutenant you had changed the naval 

 character of the expedition, although the vessels, officers, and men 

 belonged to the navy, were governed by the war power and naval 

 regulations, and were amenable to and punishable under them 

 alone. As well might it be said that a frigate sent to convey a 

 minister or despatches to a foreign court was on a peaceful errand, 

 and that, therefore, you might put a lieutenant in command ! 



Well do you remember, sir, that the ground assumed by the gov- 

 ernor and yourself {covertly} for withdrawing the Macedonian 

 from the exploring expedition in June, 1837, was the necessity of 

 employing her in the protection of our commerce in the Gulf of 

 Mexico. Let me, par courtesie, admit your sincerity ; and then per- 

 mit me respectfully to inquire how the blockade of the Mexican 

 ports by a French fleet rendered our commerce in that region so se- 

 cure as to justify you in laying up the Macedonian at Norfolk, and 

 in abstracting two heavy sloops of war and a gun brig from the 

 protection of that commerce, to send them on a service which you 

 declared not to he naval ; and that, too, when you had other ves- 

 sels already equipped and prepared for sea, or might have procu- 

 red far more appropriate craft than those sent out, in any seaport 

 of the United States, for half the money which it cost to convert 

 two sloops of war into ineffectual surveying vessels 1 In this 

 view of your patent economy, I say nothing of the bills sent home 

 from Rio, or of the delay, for months, of a noble enterprise au- 

 thorized by Congress more than three years ago. Will you or 

 Governor Dickerson say that in a famous report, purporting to an- 

 swer a call of Congress, under date of March 19th, 1837, all the 

 evidence on record in his department was given in reference to the 

 qualities of the exploring vessels Pioneer and Consort 1 Nay, 

 more : Will you or he dare deny that the most important docu- 

 ments then on file documents which afforded proof of the fitness 



