The Man Without a Country and Other Tales | Page 4

been faithful to the
United States, he cried out, in a fit of frenzy,--
"D----n the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States
again!"
I suppose he did not know how the words shocked old Colonel Morgan,
who was holding the court. Half the officers who sat in it had served
through the Revolution, and their lives, not to say their necks, had been
risked for the very idea which he so cavalierly cursed in his madness.
He, on his part, had grown up in the West of those days, in the midst of
"Spanish plot," "Orleans plot," and all the rest. He had been educated
on a plantation where the finest company was a Spanish officer or a
French merchant from Orleans. His education, such as it was, had been
perfected in commercial expeditions to Vera Cruz, and I think he told
me his father once hired an Englishman to be a private tutor for a
winter on the plantation. He had spent half his youth with an older
brother, hunting horses in Texas; and, in a word, to him "United States"

was scarcely a reality. Yet he had been fed by "United States" for all
the years since he had been in the army. He had sworn on his faith as a
Christian to be true to "United States." It was "United States" which
gave him the uniform he wore, and the sword by his side. Nay, my poor
Nolan, it was only because "United States" had picked you out first as
one of her own confidential men of honor that "A. Burr" cared for you
a straw more than for the flat-boat men who sailed his ark for him. I do
not excuse Nolan; I only explain to the reader why he damned his
country, and wished he might never hear her name again.
He never did hear her name but once again. From that moment,
September 23, 1807, till the day he died, May 11, 1863, he never heard
her name again. For that half-century and more he was a man without a
country.
Old Morgan, as I said, was terribly shocked. If Nolan had compared
George Washington to Benedict Arnold, or had cried, "God save King
George," Morgan would not have felt worse. He called the court into
his private room, and returned in fifteen minutes, with a face like a
sheet, to say,--
"Prisoner, hear the sentence of the Court! The Court decides, subject to
the approval of the President, that you never hear the name of the
United States again."
Nolan laughed. But nobody else laughed. Old Morgan was too solemn,
and the whole room was hushed dead as night for a minute. Even Nolan
lost his swagger in a moment. Then Morgan added,--
"Mr. Marshal, take the prisoner to Orleans in an armed boat, and
deliver him to the naval commander there."
The Marshal gave his orders and the prisoner was taken out of court.
"Mr. Marshal," continued old Morgan, "see that no one mentions the
United States to the prisoner. Mr. Marshal, make my respects to
Lieutenant Mitchell at Orleans, and request him to order that no one
shall mention the United States to the prisoner while he is on board
ship. You will receive your written orders from the officer on duty here
this evening. The court is adjourned without day."
I have always supposed that Colonel Morgan himself took the
proceedings of the court to Washington City, and explained them to Mr.
Jefferson. Certain it is that the President approved them,--certain, that
is, if I may believe the men who say they have seen his signature.

Before the Nautilus got round from New Orleans to the Northern
Atlantic coast with the prisoner on board the sentence had been
approved, and he was a man without a country.
The plan then adopted was substantially the same which was
necessarily followed ever after. Perhaps it was suggested by the
necessity of sending him by water from Fort Adams and Orleans. The
Secretary of the Navy--it must have been the first Crowninshield,
though he is a man I do not remember--was requested to put Nolan on
board a government vessel bound on a long cruise, and to direct that he
should be only so far confined there as to make it certain that he never
saw or heard of the country. We had few long cruises then, and the
navy was very much out of favor; and as almost all of this story is
traditional, as I have explained, I do not know certainly what his first
cruise was. But the commander to whom he was intrusted,--perhaps it
was Tingey or Shaw, though I think it was one of the younger
men,--we are all old enough now,--regulated the etiquette