Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1825-08-09
PROM THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENcER.
NAVAL COURT MARTIAL.
Frid1y AUGUST S.

Friday .9ugust S.
The Court met at | | o'clock, pursu-
ant to adjournment, and the President
having informed Commodore PORTER
that the Court was ready to receive his
defence, he requested to be heard by
his Counsel; and accordingly,
WALTER JONES, esq. rose, and pro-
ceeded to deliver, on behalf of the &C.
cused, defence, of which we give the
following Report:
Mr.. President, and
Gentlemen o. the Court Martial:
After having endured a long and
notifying suspense. the frown Of un'
defined indignation, and the anxieties
of ambiguous censure, have expe-
rienced a sensible relief from public
investigation, promising determinate
issue, on any terms. Even the hard
measure that has been dealt me, in the
manner and the spirit Of the prosecu-
cution, both before and during the pro-
gres. of my present trial, is amply
compensated. whatever be the event, by
the opportunity afforded me, OF full
and open justification before the world;
and Of submitting my cause to a trlbu-
nal, between the members of which and
myself. ar least so much of intelligence
and community of sentiment exists, as
to free me from the apprehension OF re-
ceiving less than justice at their hands;
and to acquit me, in their minds, from
the suspicion of appealing to their ia
vor, Tor any more than justice. lfPre-
paratory censures have tended to wound
my feelings, or 10 prejudice my cause /;
if stern and jealous inquisition have
probed every part of my professional
character and conduct, where the SEN
sitiveness of man of homer, or the
presumed defects of human frailty,
might be supposed to shrink from the
searching point; and, if taken unawares
by the suddenness Of the attack, Or the
novelty Of my situation, an excrueiated
sensibility may, for the time ,have broke
through the guards that should have
preserved me unmoved and self-balanc-
ed in mind and temper; yet, after all, l
bow, with humility and experimental
conviction, to the moral system Of COM
pensations, that bringeth good out OF
, evil; for innocence, made but the more
manifest and clear, from the severity OF
its trials, is the bright reversion, that
might have animated hope, and endu'
ed me with the passive fortitude Of en-
durance, through longer and more
penal term of tribulati on.
The accusations which Lam now to
answer, present this singular feature;
whilst they branch out into two distinct
classes Of offence, the most dissimilar
and the most unequal, as well in the
quality and degree of the legal and mo-
raj guilt imputed, as in the importance
and interest to the community, Of the
principles involved, and of the actions
to be condemned or justified; they all
originate in the same source, and are
closely connected by the causes that
have produced them, and by the pas
sions and motives that uphold them.
The first branch of the accusation
brings into discussion the most impor-
tant and vital principles of the high
and awful sanctions by which national
sovereignty is to be maintained and
vindicated by arms-while the second
hinges upon certain minute punctilios
of ceremonious respect. A devoted
servant of the Republic, who had con-
sumed the flower of his years and the
vigor of his life in arduous, and, as he
hoped, acceptable services; who had
looked for appreciation, if not honor
as his reward for an unstinted expo
sure to labors, privations, and dangers
so much the more disinterested, as
however beneficial to his country and
to mankind, it promised few of the
personal qualifications which may lau'
daily be sought in the renown of the
more striking and brilliant achieve
ments of war; who was conscious Of
having acted with the most implicit
respect and exact fidelity, to what hi
understood to be the views and instruc
tons of his superiors who, with vast
ed powers Of life, but untiring activity
and zeal, had exerted, for the fulhlmen
of the utmost scope and end Of those
instructions, whatsoever of efficient en-
ergy a constitution worn and broker
in the public service had left him =
that such an one should have beer
somewhat sore and impatient underre'
buke, that came like portent and 9
wonder upon his astonished senses
was far more natural than that com
plants of mlsconstruclion and inJus
tice should have been construed into
| disrespect; and free but decorous re
| monstrance treated as little less thar
mutiny.
In my justification against these
charges, I must regret the necessity OF
occupying a larger portion Of the va