His Health Was Drunk With Great Applause, And Thanks Were
Voted To Him By One Of The Houses Of Congress.
It was said that a
sword was to be given to him, but I do not think that the gift was
consummated.
Should it not have been a policeman's truncheon? Had
he at the best done any thing beyond a policeman's work? Of
Captain Wilkes no one would complain for doing policeman's duty.
If his country were satisfied with the manner in which he did it,
England, if she quarreled at all, would not quarrel with him. It
may now and again become the duty of a brave officer to do work of
so low a caliber. It is a pity that an ambitious sailor should
find himself told off for so mean a task, but the world would know
that it is not his fault. No one could blame Captain Wilkes for
acting policeman on the seas. But who ever before heard of giving
a man glory for achievements so little glorious? How Captain
Wilkes must have blushed when those speeches were made to him, when
that talk about the sword came up, when the thanks arrived to him
from Congress! An officer receives his country's thanks when he
has been in great peril, and has borne himself gallantly through
his danger; when he has endured the brunt of war, and come through
it with victory; when he has exposed himself on behalf of his
country and singed his epaulets with an enemy's fire. Captain
Wilkes tapped a merchantman on the shoulder in the high seas, and
told him that his passengers were wanted. In doing this he showed
no lack of spirit, for it might be his duty; but where was his
spirit when he submitted to be thanked for such work?
And then there arose a clamor of justification among the lawyers;
judges and ex-judges flew to Wheaton, Phillimore, and Lord Stowell.
Before twenty-four hours were over, every man and every woman in
Boston were armed with precedents. Then there was the burning of
the "Caroline." England had improperly burned the "Caroline" on
Lake Erie, or rather in one of the American ports on Lake Erie, and
had then begged pardon. If the States had been wrong, they would
beg pardon; but whether wrong or right, they would not give up
Slidell and Mason. But the lawyers soon waxed stronger. The men
were manifestly ambassadors, and as such contraband of war. Wilkes
was quite right, only he should have seized the vessel also. He
was quite right, for though Slidell and Mason might not be
ambassadors, they were undoubtedly carrying dispatches. In a few
hours there began to be a doubt whether the men could be
ambassadors, because if called ambassadors, then the power that
sent the embassy must be presumed to be recognized. That Captain
Wilkes had taken no dispatches, was true; but the captain suggested
a way out of this difficulty by declaring that he had regarded the
two men themselves as an incarnated embodiment of dispatches.
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