Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/524

 so highly lauded for his conduct on that occasion, has been dropped and stricken down. It is disgraceful.

I come again, in conclusion, to the action of Commodore Hull in the Ohio. It was stated by the Senators from Delaware, that the letter of Secretary Paulding, retracting his reprimand of the four ward-room officers of the Ohio, should forever have closed that transaction. It is a singular coincidence that those officers should have been then implicated together in disorder and insurrectionary or mutinous conduct, for it amounted to that. They were subsequently designated in the navy as the "four mutineers." It is singular that these men should have been selected subsequently to act together on the naval board. I propose to show, however, that the letter of Secretary Paulding, pretending to cancel these charges, did not close the transaction forever. I will read Commodore Hull's replies, and let the Senate judge from them whether or not Commodore Hull felt that he had injured these individuals, or whether he himself had been deeply wounded. After he had received the first letter from the Department, authorizing him to reprimand these gentlemen, he addressed a letter to them in which he said: "I have been put aside by some of you; disrespect and almost contempt have been evinced for me; and the time has arrived when it must and shall cease. There are three remedies which strike me for this state of things. One is, to lay this ship up in a Spanish port—this noble ship, the pride of our country, with her beautiful flag, of which we were once ready to boast, with its stars and stripes, hoisted at half-mast—until lieutenants can be sent from the United States to restore it to its proud and honorable bearing. Another is, to take you to sea with all your discontent, disaffection, and disrespect for your commanding officers, and trust co time to bring about a better state of feeling. And the third is, to make such changes among you as my means will admit of. I have not yet determined which to adopt; but I will now state to you that I am responsible for this ship. I shall go to sea when I please; I shall go where I please; and stay as long as I please.

"Gentlemen, our country is on the eve of war with a mighty and powerful nation, and what is the situation in which you have placed me? Who can go into battle with confidence, surrounded by disaffected officers? And, I may well ask, Who of those originally ordered to this ship as her sea-lieutenants can I confide in?"

This shows the feelings of Hull when he received and read to them the reprimand administered by the Department. I propose, however, to advert more particularly to what he said of Lieutenant Du Font's conduct on that occasion. In a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, dated March 21. 1841, Commodore Hull says: "I have long since been convinced that Lieutenant Du Pont is the leader in all the disaffection which has so unhappily reigned in the Ohio, and I am fully persuaded that the pernicious influence he has exercised over others has effected more injury to the service than he will ever be able to repair."

That was his opinion of Lieutenant Du Pont; I leave gentlemen to draw their own conclusions from it. I have no disposition to go beyond the records, and I have not done so. I have a right to advert to public records,