Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 159, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1917 — The Man Without A Country [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Man Without A Country

by Edwuard Everett Hale

THIRD INSTALLMENT. “I am showing them how we do this to the artillery, sir.” And this is a part of the story where all the legends agree; that the commodore said: “I see you do, and I thank you, sir; and I shall never forget this day, sir, and you never shall, sir.” And after the whole thing was over, and he had the Englishman’s sword, In the midst of the state and ceremony of the quarterdeck, he said: "Where Is Mr. Nolan? Ask Mr. Nolan to come here.” And when Nolan came, the captain said: ——- “Mr. Nolan, we are all very grateful to you today; you are one of us today; —you will be named in the dispatches." And then the old nfan took off his own sword of ceremony, and gave it to Nolan, and made him put It on. The yn«n told me this who saw it. Nolan cried like a baby, and well he might He had not worn a sword since that Infernal day at Fort Adams. But always afterward, on occasions of ceremony, he wore that quaint old French sword of the commodore’s. The captain did mention him in the dispatches. It was always said he asked that he might be pardoned. He wrote a special letter to the secretary of war. But nothing ever came of It As I said, that was about the time When they began to ignore the whole transaction at Washington, and when Nolan’s imprisonment began to carry Itself on because there was nobody to stop it without any new orders from home. I have heard it said that he was with Porter when he took possession of the Nukahiwa islands. Not this Porter, you know, but old Porter, his father, Essex Porter, that is, the old Essex Porter, not this Essex. As an artillery officer, who had seen service in the West, Nolan knew more about fortifications, embrasures, ravelines, stockades, and all that, than any of them did; and he worked with a right good will in fixing that battery all right. I have, always thought it was a pity Porter did not leave him in command there with Gamble. That would have settled , all the question about his punishment. We should have kept the islands, and at this moment we should have one station in the Pacific ocean. Our French friends, too, when they wanted this little watering place, would have found it was pre-occupied. But Madison and the Virginians, of course, flung all that away. All that was near fifty years ago. If Nolan was thirty then, he must have been near eighty when he died. He looked sixty when he was forty. But he never seemed to me to change a hair afterward. As I imagine his life, from what I have seen and heard of it, he must have been in every sea, and yet almost never on land. He must have known in a formal way, more officers in our service than any man living knows. He told me once, with a grave smile, that no man in the world lived so methodical a life as he. "You know the boys say I am the Iron Mask, and you know how busy he was.” He said it did not do for anyone to try to read all the time, more than to do anything else all the time; but that he read just five hours a day. “Then,” he said, “I keep up my notebooks, writing in them at such and such hours from what I have been reading; and I include in them ' ; my scrapbooks.” These were very curious indeed. He had six or eight, of different subjects. There was one of his- _ torv. one of natnral science, one which he called "Odds and Ends.” But they were not merely books of extracts from newspapers. They had bits of plants and ribbons, shells tied on, and carved scraps of bone and wood, which he had taught the men to cut for him, and they were beautifully He drew admirably. He had some of the funniest drawings there, and some of the most pathetic, that I have ever seen in my life, I wonder who will have Nolan’s scrapbooks. ... - Well, he said his reading and his notes were his profession, and that they took five hours and two hours respectively of each day. “Then,-” said he, “every man should have a diversion as well as a profession. My natural history is my diversion,” That took two hours a day more. The men . used to bring him birds and fish, but on a long cruise he had to satisfy himself with centipedes and cockroaches and such small game. He was the only naturalist I ever met who knew anything about the habits of the house fly and the mosquito. All those people can tell you whether they are Lepidoptera or Steptopotera; but as for telling how you can get rid of them, or how they get away from you when f you strike them, why, Linnaeus knew as little of that as John Foy, the idiot, did. These nine hours made Nolan’s regular dally “occupation.” The rest of the time he, talked or walked. Till he grew very ojtt, ha went «loft a great deal. He alwftyk kept up his exercise and I neverbba r 4 b® was ill. If any other mad win 111, he was the kind- («* nurse is tbs world; and ne knew

more than half the surgeons do. Then if anybody was sick or died, or if the captain wanted him to on any other occasion, he was always ready to read prayers. I have remarked that he read beautifully. My oven acquaintance with Philip Nolan began six or eight years after the war, on my first voyage after I was appointed a midshipman. It was In the first days after our slave trade treaty, while the reigning house,, which was still the house of Virginia, had still a sort of sentlmentalisui about the suppression of the horrors of the middle passage, and something was sometimes done that way. We were in the South Atlantic on that business. From ,the time I joined, I believe I thought Nolan was a sort of lav chaplain—a chaplain with a blue coat. I never asked about him. Everything in the ship was strange to me. I knew it was green to ask questions, and I suppose I thought there was a “Plain-Buttons” on every ship. We had him to dine in our mess once a week, and the caution was given that on that day nothing was to be said about home. But if they had told us not to say anything about the planet Mars or the book of Deuteronomy, I should not have asked why; there were a great many things which seemed to me to have as little reason. I first came to understand anything about “the man without a country” one day when we overhauled a dirty little schooner which had slaves on board. An officer was sent to take charge of her, and after a few minutes he sent back his boat to ask that someone might be sent him who could speak Portuguese. We were all looking over the rail when the message came, and we all wished we could interpret, when the captain asked who spoke Portuguese. But none of the officers did; and just as the captain was sending forward to ask if any of the people could, Nolan stepped out and said he should be glad to interpret, if the captain wished, as he understood the lan-

guage. The captain thanked him, fitted out another boat with him, and La this boat it was my luck to go. When we got there, it was such a scene as you seldom see, and never want to. Nastiness beyond account, and chaos run loose in the midst of the nastiness. There were not a great many of the negroes; but by way of making what there were understand that they were free, Vaughan had had their handcuffs and anklecuffs knocked off, and, for convenience’ sake, was putting them upon the rascals of the schooner’s crew. The negroes were, most of them, out of the hold, and swarming all round the dirty deck, with a central throng surrounding Vaughan and addressing him In every dialect and patois of a dialect, from the Zulu click up to the Parisian of Beledeljereed. - . . —.... ... As we cHme on deck, Vaughan looked down from a hogshead, on which he had mounted in desperation, and said: - “For God’s love, Is there anybody who can make these wretches understand something? The men gave them rum, and that did not quiet them. 1 knocked that big fellow down twice, and that did not soothe him. And then I talked Choctaw to all of them together; and I’ll be hanged if they understood that as well as they under* stood the English.” * Nolan said he could speak Portuguese, and one or two fine-looking Kroomen were dragged out, who, as it had been found already, had worked for the Portuguese on the coast at Fernando Po. a * “Tell them they are free,” said Vaughan; “and tell them" 1 that these rascals are to be hanged as soon as we can get rope enough.” Nolan explained It in such Portuguese as the Kroomen could understand, and they In turn to such of the negroes as could understand them. Then there was snob a yell of delight,

clinching of fists, leaping and dancing, kissing of Nolan’s feet, and a general rush made to the hogshead by way of spontaneous worship of Vaughan as the deus ex machina of the occasion. “Tell them,” said Vaughan/' well pleased, “that I will take them all to Cape Palmas.” ■nils did not answer so well. Cape Palmas was practically as far from the homes of most of them as New Orleans or Rio Janeiro was; thaLlft they, would be eternally separated from home there. And their Interpreters, as we could understand, instantly said, “Ah, non Palmas,” and began to propose Infinite other expedients in most voluble language. Vaughan was rather disappointed at this result of his liberality, and asked Nolan eagerly what they said. The drops stood on poor Nolan’s, white forehead as be hushed the men down, and said: “He says, ‘Not Palmas.’ He says, ‘Take us home, take us to our country, take us to our own house, take us to our own pickaninnies and our own women.’ He says he has an old father and mother, who will die, if not see him. And this one says he left his people all sick, and paddled down to come and help them, and that these devils caught him in the bay just in sight of home, and that he has never seen anybody from home since then. And this one says,” choked out Nolan, “that hfe has not heard a —word from his home in six months, while he has been locked up In an Infernal barracoon.” Vaughan always said he grew gray himself while Nolan struggled through this Interpretation, I, who did not understand anything of the passion involved in it, saw that the very elements were melting with fervent heat, and that something was to pay somewhere. Even the negroes themselves stopped howling as they saw Nolan’s agony, and Vaughan’s almgst equal agony of sympathy. As quick as he could get words, he said: “Tell them yes, yes; tell them they shall go to the Mountains of the Moon, if they will. If I sail the schooner through the Great White Desert, they shall go home!” And after some fashion Nolan said so. And then they aW fell to kissing him again and wanted to rub his nose with theirs. But he could not stand It long; and getting Vaughan to say he might go back, he Reckoned me down into our boat. As we lay back in the stern sheets and the men gave way, he said to me: “Youngster, let that show you what it is to be without a family, with : out a home, and without a country. And if you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing that shall put a bar between you and your family, your home, and your country, pray God in his mercy to take you that Instant home to his own heaven. Stick by your family, boy; forget you have a self, while you do everything for them. Think of your home, boy; write and send, and talk about it. Let it be nearer and nearer to your thought, the farther you have to travel from it; and rush to it, when you are free, as that poor black slave is doing now. And for your country, boy,” and the words rattled in his throat, “and for that flag,” and he pointed to the ship, “never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though the service carry you through a thousand hells. No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind officers, and government, and people even, there is the country herself, your country, and that you belong to her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by her, boy, as you would stand by your mother, if those devils there had got hold of her today 1” I was frightened to death by his calm, hard pass:on; but I blundered out that I would, by that was holy, and that I had newer thought of doing anything else. He hardly seemed to hear me; but he did, almost in a whisper, say: “Oh, if anybody had said so to me when I was of your age!” I think it was this half-confidence of his, which I never abused. ior Lnevea told this story till now, which afterward made us great friends. He was very kind to me. Often he sat up, or even, got up, at night to walk the deck with me when it was my watch. He explained to me a great deal of my mathematics. He lent me books, and helped me about my reading. He never alluded so directly to his story again; bnt from one and another officer I have learned, in thirty years, what I am telling. When WeTparted from him in St. Thomas harbor* at the end of our cruise, I was more sorry than I xan teU. I was very-glad to meet him. again in 1830; and later inlife, when I thought I had some Influence in Washington, I moved heaven and earth to have him discharged. But it was like getting a ghost out of prison. They pretended there was nc such man, and never was such a man. They will say so at the department now! Perhaps they do not know. *lt will not be the first thing in the service of which the department appears tQ know nothing! (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Hushed the Men Down.