The age-herald., 1901-11-20
savoyard in Washington Post.


 John orde, one of his subordinates, took mortal affront at his chief because Nell son was given better place in the line and when the battle was over and the victory won, Orde invited Jarvis to give him satisfaction on the field of honor, as 1t was called In those days. The incl dent was taken calmly by all in authori- ty, for the ''code" was recognized throughout Christendom In after years the great Duke of Wellington, then first minister of England and first subject or Europe, went on the field and had shot at an adversary. Canning and Sastle- reagh, two other statesmen, who as prime ministers directed the destinies or the British empire, met on the field ana fired at each other. Peel wished to hght O'Connell It is related that General Jackson, then President of the United States threatened, After I get these robes of magistry off. I'll have 1t out with that rascal" meaning Henry Clay. But Christendom is more christianized at the beginning of the twentieth century than it was when the ninteeth was fairly entered upon it's second quarter.
 And that is why there have not been 
 versies of the Santiago campaign of the Spanish war of 1S96 If a hundred in- telligent Americans were called on to name the five greatest naval heroes who have fought under flag, doubtless ninety-nine, doubtless all of them, would include Stephen Decatur In their lists. He was the idol of the navy and of the nation, even in the time of Preble, Tux ton, Stewart, Shauncey Perry, McDo nough, Hill, Bainbridge, Porter, Law renee, and others. Just as our war with Mexico was the heroic school of the com manders-supreme and subordinate-of both the Federal and Confederate armies in the tremendous conflict of 1S61-'65, so the war with Tripoli was the school of our young navy, which covered itself with so much glory in the war of 1872. Decatur was the pride of the navy and the d'Artagnan of that glorious war. Lord Nelson, the best judge of such mat ters then living, said that Decatur's eX- ploit of destroying the Philadelphia, his fathers old ship and named for the city In which he lived. was "the most daring act of the age" He never believed in the "code' and abhorred 1t, but ne recognized 1t. and as second of James Bainbridge. who was called out by a British officer dead shot--at Malta, set the distance at four paces, and Bainbridge killed his man. On the field Decatur, himself a superior shot, offered to take the place of his principal, a poor shot, and fight at the usual distance, but that was re- fused. Later he was second for Perry and gave the word. though he knew Per ry would not return Heath's fire.
 Decatur's grandfather was a native of Rochelle, the city of heroic fame that withstood Richelieu stubbornly. It was the fortress of the Huguenots and It's mere mantion brings to mind the "Ironsdes," of whom old Sully writes 90 grimly-the men who gained France for Henry of Navarro. though the cost of Paris was a mass. The elder Decatur, captain of French vessel, fell in love with a Yankee lass, Abagail Hill, and gave up France for her. That was how It came that Stephen was American born In Maryland in 1779, though Philadelphia was his home after his third year.
 If one will turn to the appendix of that excellent narrative, Mahon's life of the great Condo, he will find Napoleon's crit lcisms of the battles of Condo and Tn- renne, and how they were victorious be- cause their adverSaries had not the gen. ius to take advantage of their. blunders Stephen Decatur, with equal force, criti- cised Rodney's victory and Nelson's plan of battle and Nelson came out victor only because the opposing fleets were de- ficient in marksmanship. And just while ago Admiral Schley testified: '"The Spaniards would have got us had they been as good shots as we" And that has been the secret of every naval success since boarding ceased to be the chief ob- feet of a naval commander-since the time of Monk, who did not know the meaning of 'larboard" and 'starboard, '" and yet he gained naval victories. The American navy was born that bleak Mo-
 1r1,N, MpF,l law ffa the schooner Lee captured the British brig Nancy, and from that day to this Runnery has been the strong point of the American navy.
 When England was in the death grap- pie with Napoleon her navy executed hSr "Orders in Council" They were tyrafi- nous, but it was the only way to retain the mastery of the seas and meet the Berlin and Milan 'decrees'' of the Cor sican. It was the assertion of the Right of Search' which carried with 1t the right to confiscate and to oppress. In our young navy of that period was a ship, a 3S, the Chesapeake. Her sister ship was the Constellation. The former was ever unlucky, and on her quarter deck fell Lawrence with the heroic com mand. Do not give up the snip, and yet she stuck to the shannon. The Con stellation was lucy and 1t was on her deck that Tom Truxton gained glory and a commodores commission.
 It was in 1907 that Commodore James Barron was appointed to lne command of the Chesapeake and ordered on a cruise mainly with a view to disciplin- ing the crew in anticipation of war with France, then apparently imminent He had hardly left the American coast behind when he was oyerhauled by the British frigate Leopard, of fifty guns and ordered to surrender three of his crew, alleged to be deserters rom the British navy. Though his ship was un- prepared for action, he refused, and the Leopard poured a broadside into him, killing three and wounding eighteen. There was no priming powder on board, but after a time Barron managed to ire one gun. employing a live coal from the galley fire. Then he surrendered to over whelming odds. The Leopard took the three "deserters'' and went her way. The country was in an ecstasy of indignation and every voice was for war. England repudiated the act of the captain of the Leopard, apologized, and returned the "deserters" with an ample money in demnity.. ..z
 Barron was brought before a court martial, trisi and condemned, and sen- fenced to suspension from rank and loss of pay for five years, though the blame belonged to the Navy Department for sending him to sea in such crippled con- dition. When the sentence expired he aought service, we being at war with England at the time, but his request was denied.
 ;The affair of the Chesapeake was the