1831.] 
DEATH OF EX-PRESIBENT MONROE. 
17 
portant of which is on Craney Island, near the mouth of the 
Ehzabeth river, about five miles below the town. The United 
States commissioners who were appointed in 1818 to survey the 
lower part of Chesapeake Bay, reported that Hampton-Roads, 
though extensive, were capable of adequate defence, so as to 
prevent the entrance of an enemy's fleet. We therefore trust 
that our national metropolis will henceforth be secure from 
invasions. 
The general instructions of the secretary of the navy to Com- 
modore Downes, as commander of the Potomac and of the Pacific 
squadron, are dated on the 27th of June, 1831. He was ordered 
to proceed to New-York by the 1 st of August, if possible ; and 
there receive on board the Honourable Martin Van Buren and 
suite, the recently-appointed minister to the court of St. James, 
who was to be landed at Portsmouth, or some other convenient 
port in the British channel. The commodore was then directed to 
make the best of his way to the Pacific Ocean by a passage round 
Cape Horn, first touching at Brazil. These instructions contain 
full and official directions as to the steps to be taken for the pro- 
tection of American commerce and sustaining the honour of the 
American flag, as well as for increasing the domestic resources 
of our own country, by obtaining and preserving such foreign 
staple productions as might be naturalized in our own soil. 
These instructions, so creditable to the department and' to the 
character of our country, are given at length in the Appendix. 
Our frigate lay in Hampton-Roads until the 15th of July, 
during which period all hands were busily employed in taking 
on board such necessary stores as could be procured at this 
place. Here her officers first received the intelligence of a third 
point to a coincidence of a very remarkable character. On the 
4th of July, the anniversary of our national independence, James 
Monroe, the fifth president of the United States, breathed his lasty 
in the city of New-York, at the residence of his son-in-law, 
Samuel Governeur, Esq. This event had been for some time 
expected, and was several days previous to his death momentarily 
looked for. His spirit, however, was permitted to linger in the 
body until his country's birthday came round ; and he departed 
while a grateful nation, for whose independence he had fought 
and bled — a nation which venerated him while living, and which 
B 
