A retrospect of forty years, 1825-1865

Front matter

1825-1865

BY

EDITED BY HIS DAUGHTER

Preface

In recalling any important undertaking in one's life, or in that of another, there is always some especially associated place which stands out with peculiar distinctness.

Such recollections, as far as this volume is concerned, cluster about the corner of a certain old leather-covered sofa in that room of our home which has always been known as "The Study." There my father, in the early days of " Round Oak," pondered legal problems or amused the baby on his knee (sometimes doing both simultaneously), and there we can remember him, after his return from the city, at the end of a laborious day, still finding time and energy to tell his little children the next chapter of some thrilling tale which often for weeks and even for months would hold them spellbound by the narrator's charm and wit.

On that same sofa do those children, now men and women, picture their father in his declining years, and there, in time, came the little ones of the next generation to listen to famous stories retold and to original fairy tales. Often they found him there when for hours he had been dictating these reminiscences — reminiscences written at the earnest desire of my mother — intended chiefly for his grandchildren, never seen by his own eyes, heard by him

vii

PREFACE

only as they fell from his own lips, and in the main never read to him for revision.

As many of my father's most vital memories clustered about the Civil War, they naturally led him into a discussion of its causes; and in this book, besides the narrative of my father's early life, will be found a continuous and succinct account of the growth of the anti-slavery sentiment.

In editing at the request of my mother these dictated writings, I have endeavored to verify all quotations and dates. It has been sometimes necessary to reconstruct sentences, to make a few transpositions and to insert a few explanatory notes; but nothing has been done that would interfere with my father's style or that would change the design he had in mind. Only, the deep longing remains — that he, himself, had been able to revise the work, and to bring it to that high degree of perfection which invariably characterized his finished literary efforts.

On examining a number of old letters I have found much relating to my father's boyhood some of which I have incorporated into the narrative. Throughout the work I have also scattered selections illustrative of the poet nature with which he was so generously endowed.

It has been thought fitting to add to this volume the Memorial read by Judge George C. Holt before the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, containing an account of the principal cases in which the Lawyer established and sustained his professional reputation. There have also been added the Memorials presented and read

viii

PREFACE

before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, First Department, October 22, 1902, and before the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York, on behalf of the Admiralty Bar, October 28, 1902; and finally the address delivered March 20, 191 1, by the Hon. Alton B. Parker, formerly Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, on the occasion of the presentation of my father's portrait to that Court, and the response of Chief Judge Cullen thereto.

The editorial labor involved in publishing this "Retrospect" has been lightened by helpful suggestions from other members of the family and a few immediate friends, and has been one of mingled pain and happiness to us all — pain that came from the absence of him who alone could answer many questions arising in the prosecution of the work, and happiness in the deep satisfaction of being able to give to others what had been prepared for us by that vivid memory, brilliant intellect, and loving heart.

Harriet Allen Butler.

"Round Oak," Yonkers, N. Y., June 7, 1911.

IX

PAGE

INTRODUCTION i

CHAPTER I.— Birth— Early Home— Revised Statutes and Revisers — Story of the Wonderful Horse — William Howard Allen — His Naval Career, Death and Burial — Halleck's Commemorative Poem — Medad Butler — His Ancestry — Kinderhook Landing— "The Hill"— The Freshwater Shad 7

CHAPTER II.— Edward C. D el avan— Temperance and Total Abstinence — Delavan's Expiatory Libation — Delavan House — A Conference on Total Abstinence — The So-called Beer Trial — William B. Sprague — Anecdotes — Albany Academy — Dr. Bullions — Greenbush and Schodack Academy — Cholera Epidemic — Trip to Utica 21

CHAPTER III.— Offers to Benjamin F. Butler of United States Senatorship and State Supreme Court Judgeship — His Refusals — Bench and Bar of New York — Commission for Settling Boundary Line Between New York and New Jersey— Albany Regency— Van Buren's Letter— United States Attorney-Generalship Offered to Benjamin F. Butler— His Acceptance— Testimonial — Correspondence 33

CHAPTER IV.— Journey to Washington— Roberts Vaux— Story of Franklin's Sawdust Pudding — The Supreme Court — The Room — The Judges — William Wirt — Anecdotes — Call on General Jackson — His Appearance — Washington in 1834 — Social Life— Tone of Society— Effect of Slavery— Members of Congress — The "Swallow-Tailed Gentry" — Foreign Ministry — School Life in Washington — School Life in Hudson — Lafayette's

Wig 46

xi

PAGE

CHAPTER V.— Slavery Conditions at National Capital— Results of Compromises — Historical Review of Introduction of Slavery Into the United States — Birth and Growth of Abolition Sentiment — The Ordinance of 1787 — Compromises of the Constitution — Recognition of Slavery by the Constitution — Fugitive Slaves — Abolition of Slave-Trade — Louisiana Purchase — Missouri Compromise — Letter of John Forsyth to Van Buren . . 67

CHAPTER VI. — William Lloyd Garrison — Incident of John Smothers — Story of the Colored Door-Keeper — Bunker's Mansion House in New York — Aaron Burr — New York in 1834 — Letter, 1838 — Martin Van Buren — His Career — Inauguration as President — Benjamin F. Butler's Resignation of Attorney-Generalship — Letter of Felix Grundy 80

CHAPTER VII.— Charles Butler— Voyage to Europe— Dickens- Letter Home, 1838 — Paris — Homeward Voyage Interrupted — A "Weller" Anecdote — Trip to Ireland with John Van Buren — Rome — Pompeii — Extracts from Journal — Return Home ... 92

CHAPTER VIII.— United States District Attorneyship of New York Offered to Benjamin F. Butler — Accepted — Presidential Campaign of 1840 — The "Log-Cabin and Hard-Cider" Frenzy — Van Buren's Retirement at Lindenwald — Death of President Harrison — George William Curtis — New York University Law School — Established by Benjamin F. Butler — Letter of Justice Story — Graduation at University of New York in Class of 1843 — Class Dinners 105

CHAPTER IX.— Trip to Nashville— Visit to "The Hermitage"— Talks with General Jackson — His Reminiscences — Church Service — The De Witt Clinton Toast — Correspondence with Fitz- Greene Halleck — Jefferson Dinner, Toast and Nullification — Letter from General Jackson to a Young Man — Annexation of Texas a Leading Issue 118

CHAPTER X.--Retum Trip to Washington— Mammoth Cave- Presidential Campaign of 1844 — Defeat of Van Buren — Explosion on the Princeton — Silas Wright — Secretaryship of War Offered to Benjamin F. Butler — His Refusal and His Resumption of the District Attorneyship in New York — George Bancroft . 140

xii

PAGE

CHAPTER XL— Admission to the Bar— Voyage to Europe— " The Wanderer" — Entertained at Caen — Paris of 1846 — "Vaucluse" — The Young Englishman and the Queen's English — Trip to Genoa and Naples — Ascent of Vesuvius — Hotel at Pompeii — The Landlord's English — Trip to Sicily — Rome — Pope Pius IX — Lepri's Resort of Americans — Powers's "Greek Slave" — Titian's "Assumption" — Florence — Venice — Letter Home — Berlin — Baron Von Humboldt 151

CHAPTER XII— London— Breakfast with Samuel Rogers— His Table Talk — Letter from Mrs. George Bancroft — Literary Celebrities — Contributions to "The Literary World" and "The Democratic Review" — Poems of Travel — Return Home — Mexican War — Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo — Wilmot Proviso — Presidential Campaign of 1848 — Free Soil Party .... 174

CHAPTER XIIL— First Legal Cases— Discovery of Gold in California — The Case of the S. S. Union — The Case of the Ship Pacific — Custom-house Case — "The Colonel's Club" — Evert and George Duyckinck — "The Sexton and the Thermometer" . 193

CHAPTER XIV.— Return of Benjamin F. Butler to New York- Law Office in Wall Street — A Supply of Office Boys — Successive Law Firms — Hiram Barney — Account of Professional Life — General Taylor — Henry Clay — His Compromise — John C. Calhoun — Daniel Webster — His Seventh of March Speech — Indignation in the North — Whittier's "Ichabod" — Death of President Taylor — Compromise of 1850 209

CHAPTER XV— Marriage — A Quaker's Salutation — Reverend Samuel Russell — Wedding Trip — Home in 37 East Nineteenth Street — Domestic Events — Horace Greeley — P. T. Barnum — Jenny Lind — "Barnum's Parnassus" — "Sea Scribblings" — American Art Union — Court of Appeals Decision — "Mrs. Limber's Raffle" 228

CHAPTER XVI.— Presidential Campaign of 1852— Franklin Pierce — Nathaniel Hawthorne — Constitutionality of Fugitive Slave Law — Benjamin F. Butler's Attitude to Free Soil Party — Result

xiii

PACE of Election — World's Fair of 1853— Crystal Palace — Domestic £ ven ts — Mrs. Benjamin F. Butler — Her Ancestry — Life — Death and Funeral 240

CHAPTER XVII. — Repeal of Missouri Compromise — Stephen A. Douglas — Popular Sovereignty — Kansas-Nebraska Bill — Border Ruffians — John Brown — "The Crime Against Kansas" — Assault by Brooks on Sumner — Meeting in Broadway Tabernacle — Pierre Soule— The "Black Warrior" Episode— Ostend Manifesto — Anthony Burns — The Underground Railroad — "Uncle Tom's Cabin" 251

CHAPTER XVIII.— "Nothing to Wear"— Its Genesis— Publication and Popularity — A School-girl Claimant — Reviews — Literary Work for Harper's — Letter from George William Curtis — Review by William D. Howells — The Poem 274

CHAPTER XIX.— Republican Party— Presidential Campaign of 1856 — President Buchanan — Lecompton Convention — The English Bill— Trip South with Captain Marshall— "At Richmond" —"Two Millions" 298

CHAPTER XX.— Benjamin F. Butler— His Last Legal Cases- Trip to Europe — His Illness — Death and Funeral — Resolutions — William Curtis Noyes — Evert A. Duyckinck — Samuel J. Tilden — His Will — Astor-Lenox-Tilden Foundation . . . 313

CHAPTER XXL— Dred Scott Case— Douglas and Lincoln Rival Candidates for Senator — John Brown's Raid — Lincoln in New York — Cooper Union Speech — Visit to Five Points School of Industry — Nominations at Chicago Convention — Governor Seward — Presidential Campaign of i860 327

CHAPTER XXII.— President Buchanan Dazed— His Cabinet- Secession of South Carolina — Fort Sumter — Lincoln's Inauguration — His Cabinet — Relief of Sumter — Opening of the War — Hiram Barney — The Proposed Proclamation of Emancipation — Attitude of Foreign Governments — England and the Rebellion —

Privateers 339

xiv

PAGE

CHAPTER XXIII.— Home at No 13 East Twelfth Street— Domestic Events— Seven Summers at Newburgh— Battle of Bull Run— The Union Army— Its High Character— Franklin Butler Crosby — Poem on His Death— The Merrimac and The Monitor — The Emancipation Proclamation 355

CHAPTER XXIV.— Death of Martin Van Buren— Funeral at Kinderhook — Columbia County Lawyers — Biographical Sketch of Martin Van Buren — Presidential Campaign of 1864 — General McClellan— Speech of Dr. Tyng— Lincoln Re-elected— Surrender of Lee — Assassination of Lincoln — Grief of a Nation — Tom Taylor's Poem in "Punch"— John P. Crosby— His Death —Death of Captain Marshall— Memorial— Move to Yonkers— "Round Oak"— Home Poems: "Tom Twist," "Somebody"— Books and the Library 3 6 5

APPENDIX.—

Memorial of William Allen Butler 39 1

Memorial Proceedings in the Supreme Court 4 T 7

Memorial Proceedings in the District Court of the United States 424

Address in the Court of Appeals 427

INDEX 43i

XV

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

William Allen Butler Frontispiece

A portrait painted by Howard Russell Butler, now in the anti-chamber of the Court of Appeals, Albany, N. Y.

FACING PAGE

Mary Russell Butler [Mrs. William Allen Butler] . . Dedication From a photograph, 1910.

Mabel Jones 16

From a portrait, now in the possession of Mrs. Helena B. Wainwright, Hartford, Conn.

Medad Butler 64 "

From a portrait painted about 1825, now in the possession of Miss Emily O Butler.

\^ Hannah Tylee Butler 96

From a portrait painted by Samuel Laurence, now in the possession of Miss Emily O. Butler.

Benjamin Franklin Butler 128

From a portrait by Thomas Hicks, now in the possession of Mrs. William Allen Butler.

From a portrait painted about 1835, now in the possession of Mrs. Mary Howard Butler.

Charles Henry Marshall 194

From a portrait painted by Thomas Hicks, now in the possession of Mrs. William Allen Butler.

Fidelia Wellman Marshall 224

From a portrait, now in the possession of Mrs. William Allen Butler, by Howard Russell Butler, based on a miniature painted in England, 1825.

From a Carte de visite, 1857.

xvii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

Mary Russell Butler [Mrs. William Allen Butler] . . . 286 J

From a Carte de visile, 1857.

J

North View of "Round Oak," 1867 320

J South View of "Round Oak," 1903 352

View from Terrace of "Round Oak," 1903 ....... 384

XVII!

1825-1865

Introduction

ENTERING this day, February 20, 1899, on my seventy-fifth year, and being by the blessing of Providence "of sound mind and memory," as testators have been in the habit of saying from time immemorial, " and under no restraint" save a somewhat impaired eyesight, it seems to me an opportune moment for beginning a narrative of some of the events of a long and busy life. I am moved to this more by calls, urgent and reiterated, from the voices of those nearest and dearest to me, than by any decided impulse of my own.

I believe it is Henri Rochefort, the Parisian journalist, who is credited with the cynical remark that when men become fit for nothing else they begin to write their reminiscences. This is an apt illustration of the old legal maxim "The greater the truth, the greater the libel"; for it is only old men who can have any considerable store of reminiscence, and it is only when they are disabled for the active pursuits of life that they can find solace and refuge in memory. It is often said that old men live in the past; but would it not be truer to say that the past lives in them, so far as they revive its recollections and chronicle its events ? Surely they ought not to be grudged this harmless monopoly of reminiscence.

Fortunately, perhaps, a safeguard against too much autobiography is found in the fact that so many personal memoirs, begun with good intent, are never carried to completion. "Here the manuscript ends," "cetera desunt," "the rest is wanting" — such are the legends that at the foot of the last autobiographic page cut short the thread of the personal narrative and leave the story of the life unfinished, unless traced by another hand than that which began it; and so the field of literature is strewn with the fragments of autobiographies. In view of this deterring fact, if my personal reminiscences were of any public concern or value, I might well take warning from an incident in my own experience.

On one of my last visits to Martin Van Buren, eighth president of the United States, at Lindenwald, his country home at Kinderhook, N. Y., he told me he had brought the rough draft of his autobiography to the date of his election to the presidency in 1836. I ventured to urge him to pause at this point and revise for publication what he had already written, saying to him that he was the hero of his own book, and having been elected to the presidency of the United States, that was a good place to leave himself. "But," said the ex-president, "I must vindicate my administration." I replied that there were many men who could do that, but no one except himself could properly complete the work of revising his manuscript as it stood. I soon found, however, that my view could not prevail, and the result justified my apprehensions; for the autobiography was never finished.

In a sense, what the Bible is to the race, the record of every man's life is to himself, a revelation in which he may read the designs and dealings of Providence, his own human lapses and the divine deliverances.

The interest we take in our own lives is incommunicable. Only as they have been linked with other lives more potential than our own, can they have any special interest even to our kindred. In my present retrospective essay I have not the aid of diary or journal. Almost the only diaries I hold in esteem are those of that garrulous old worldling, Pepys, and of the stately and saintly John Evelyn. People who attach wonderful importance to everything said and done by the dispensers of power have for diary-keeping a motive which private persons lack. The daily notes of courtiers, officials, statesmen and other public functionaries, dealing with the conduct of affairs and the making of history, are, in some sort, annals of the times, and thus have a reason for existence.

Long ago I was impressed by the force of Robert Hall's recorded disapproval of the habit of keeping a diary, on the ground that it tempted to an artificial, insincere tone of expression. 1 This objection he made, I think, more particularly as to journals of personal experience, religious or other, but it is not without weight if generally applied. In conversation, in letter-writing, in narrative,

1 Robert Hall, "Works," 1838 (Memoir by Dr. Gregory).

oral or written, there is the naturalness that belongs to dealing with men or things outside of our own personality; but when individual feeling, opinion and animadversion seek expression in the private pages of a diary, it is difficult for the writer to be fair and candid even with himself.

While my own life has been too uneventful and unimportant to justify any extended narrative, it has always been an active one, in touch more or less with current public affairs and the men concerned in shaping them. I may, therefore, be able in these pages to preserve some memorabilia serviceable for the gratification of my own passion for retrospection and for the preservation of some facts and incidents which otherwise would be forgotten or with difficulty recalled to mind.

Some time ago, while reading a volume of Horace Walpole's Letters, I came upon certain pages headed "Notes of My Life," written by himself for his friends, the Misses Berry, containing under date of successive years the leading events of his career, entered concisely, somewhat like items in a stated account of annual rents. My chance acquaintance with this summary of a life, more similar to a table of contents than to a sustained biography, has induced me to imitate Walpole's commendable example, and arrange my retrospective annals under the dates of the years to which they belong, regretting only that while following this method of Walpole, I cannot bring to my pages the vivacity and grace of that charming writer. 1

1 Although my father's original intention was to follow this chronological method of Walpole, he did not carry out the revision of his manuscript far enough for the editor to adhere strictly to this plan. — Ed.

One object which I hope to keep in view is tracing, step by step and year by year, the rise, progress, supremacy and destruction of the slave power in the United States — from the first alarm and outcry against any agitation in the free States of the question of slavery, either on the side of morality or politics, through the long and violent conflicts in Congress and at the polls, through the period of secession and of armed rebellion, to the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the downfall of the Confederacy at Appomattox. All these successive events I was able to watch, with the keenest interest, from no distant point of view, either in respect to the political struggle or to the fortunes of the Civil War. Notwithstanding all that has been written in history, narrative and biography touching slavery and its issues, I am inclined to think that the present generation of Americans is less informed about the growth of anti-slavery sentiment and the causes of its final strength in the struggle for the Union than about other and earlier periods of our national history. The downfall of slavery was like the cataclysm described in the Apocalypse, "as it were a great mountain cast into the sea"; the turbid waves of time engulfed it, and it disappeared finally and for ever. Nothing was left of the slave-holders' oligarchy but a few plantation melodies and some old-time negro dialect stories.

An intelligent English visitor to this country recently made a tour in the South, and fell in with a veteran who had outlived the Confederacy, and who had spent much of his old age in composing a history of the lost cause, doubtless permeated with lamentation and woe. When the work was finished, the veteran told his English friend that he gave it to his son, a young man just entering on an active career, who, to the father's surprise, returned it unread, saying that all its contents must be a sealed book to him. The father was looking backward, the son forward. With the son, as with the great bulk of men born since 1861, whether in the North or in the South, slavery is a tradition, affording no satisfaction in the retrospect, and no inspiration for the future, and obscured by the later stirring events which have brought into being a national unity such as never before existed.

Chapter I

BIRTH — EARLY HOME — REVISED STATUTES AND REVISERS — STORY OF THE WONDERFUL HORSE — WILLIAM HOWARD ALLEN — HIS NAVAL CAREER, DEATH AND BURIAL — HALLECK'S COMMEMORATIVE POEM — MEDAD BUTLER — HIS ANCESTRY — KINDERHOOK LANDING — "THE HILL" — THE FRESHWATER SHAD.

THE house, No. 109 State Street, 1 Albany, N. Y., in which I was born, February 20, 1825, is of some interest to the legal profession. Within its walls, chiefly in the front basement, then the law office of my father, Benjamin Franklin Butler, was carried on, to a large extent, the preparation of "The Revised Statutes of the State of New York," one of the most important legal works of the nineteenth century. It was a novel, bold and successful attempt to bring the whole common law of England and all the existing colonial and State statutes affecting our commonwealth into a complete and systematic code, based upon scientific principles and sufficient for all the needs of government.

In an address delivered before the Bar Association of the City of New York, January 22, 1889, on the occasion

1 The building still stands, but is no longer used as a private residence. On a near-by corner on State Street a bronze tablet has recently been placed with the inscription: STATE ST. FORMERLY YONKER, (OR GENTLEMAN ST.). It is a curious little coincidence that my father's life, of which so much was spent in the city of Yonkers, should have begun on a street of the name of Yonker. — Ed.

of my presentation to it of portraits of the three revisers, my father, John Duer and John C. Spencer, I set forth the history of their work from its inception in 1824 to its completion in 1830. This address was afterward published under the auspices of the Association, with some additions and brief biographical sketches of the revisers, under the title of "The Revision of the Statutes of the State of New York and the Revisers." Were it possible to reproduce on these pages the tributes which came to me after the publication of this book from many of the most eminent judges and jurists of our country, they would bear out to the fullest extent the estimate I had expressed of the value and importance of the Revised Statutes. They became the model of the statute law of many of the States of the Union and remain today the groundwork of our existing system of statutory law.

I have referred at the outset to the Revised Statutes and its framers because they are associated with my earliest recollections. When I was about four years old my father and his co-workers, Messrs. Duer and Spencer, were in the habit of taking a brief respite from their labors in the latter part of the day for a cup of tea or other refreshments. Being the only son, although the fourth child, of my parents, I was made an exhibit in the course of their interlocutory proceedings, and was on very familiar terms with the grave codifiers who were my father's guests and to whom I imparted some strange information.

My father owned a saddle-horse named Diamond, who was the object of my unbounded childish admiration. Either as the result of my imagination or, more likely, the experience of dreamland, I told the revisers in perfect simplicity of most extraordinary, preternatural and super-equine feats performed by this wonderful horse in my presence; amongst others, of his having mounted from the sidewalk of State Street up the front wall and over the roof of our house descending on Maiden Lane, the rear boundary of the premises. Nearly thirty years afterward my dim remembrance of these occasions was clarified in a somewhat startling way. I had just finished a long argument before the General Term of the New York Superior Court, of which at that time this same John Duer was Chief Justice. The old man — for such he had become — lingered a while after the adjournment of the court to chat with me and some other lawyers, and presently, calling their attention to myself, he said: "Would you believe it that this young man, when I first knew him, was one of the greatest liars who ever lived ?' ; and then went on, fortunately for me, without a break to permit a damaging impression, to repeat my juvenile story of the exploits of Diamond. The fact that he had retained so vivid a recollection of my Munchausen tales shows that they must have been told with impressive effect.

I was named for my uncle William Howard Allen, the only brother of my mother, whose maiden name was Harriet Allen. Their parents, Howard and Lydia Allen, came from the island of Nantucket with the colony which settled at Hudson, N. Y., at the head of ship navigation of the Hudson River. Their son, William Howard, born July 8, 1790, entered the United States Navy as a midshipman in 1808, was commissioned a lieutenant in 18 13, and, entering at once on active service in the war with England, was made third in command of the sloop-of-war Argus. This vessel of only two hundred and sixtyeight tons was destined to achieve a great naval reputation in the short cruise on which she entered June 18, 1 8 13, when she sailed from New York having on board William H. Crawford, our newly appointed Minister to France. By a singular coincidence the commander of the Argus, although no relation to my uncle, bore the name of William Henry Allen.

After a voyage of twenty-three days the vessel reached L'Orient, and, having refitted, went in search of prizes. Spears, the historian of our navy, says: "It was a short but brilliant cruise. The Argus sailed on July 14, 1813. Ship after ship was taken, some of them right under the cliffs of the British coast. Some were sunk and some were burned. A few of the more valuable were manned and sent to French ports. Indeed, so many prizes were taken that the crew became worn out with the work. The Argus was at sea but one month and yet twenty ships, valued at $2,500,000, were taken in that time."

On August 13, 1 8 13, while the Argus was in the Irish Sea, she was attacked by the British brig Pelican, a warvessel of four hundred and twenty-seven tons, which had just put into Cork three days before and hearing of the depredations of the Yankee cruiser, had sailed in search of her. Notwithstanding the worn-out condition of his men Captain Allen immediately engaged the Pelican and one of the most notable sea-fights of the war followed. From five o'clock in the morning until after six o'clock in the evening the combat raged. Soon after six o'clock in the morning Captain Allen was struck by a ball which shattered one leg. The leg was amputated after he was carried below, and although he lived more than a month, he died from the effects of the wound in England, August 18, 1813. The command devolved on Lieutenant William H. Watson; but a few moments later a grape-shot struck his head and he was carried below unconscious. The command then fell to my uncle, William Howard Allen, and he maintained the unequal fight during the whole day until the Argus was rendered helpless, and she was surrendered, almost a complete wreck.

The surviving officers and men of the Argus were taken to England on the Pelican, where, as already mentioned, Captain Allen died. He was buried at Plymouth with high military honors, in recognition of his ability as a seaman and of his humane treatment of the prisoners he had taken during his last cruise. The inadequate honor was accorded him at home of having a street in the city of New York named for him — Allen Street — running from Division Street, northeast to Houston Street. My uncle, Lieutenant Allen, was detained at Ashburton as a prisoner of war until peace was proclaimed. He was afterward in service on the Flambeau, one of the vessels in the squadron of Commodore Decatur on his famous cruise to the Mediterranean in 1815, signalized by the abject submission of the Dey of Algiers on the quarter-deck of the American commodore's flagship. The Dey acceded to all his demands for the protection of our commerce in the Mediterranean, and relinquished all pretensions to levy tribute on the property of American citizens or to reduce them to slavery.