n found on board who were English by birth, though American by
choice and adoption.

"Once a subject always a subject," said Great Britain, but our answer
in 1812 was as it is now: any foreigner after five years' residence
within our territory, who has complied with our naturalization laws
and taken the oath of allegiance to our flag, becomes one of our
citizens as completely as if he were native born.

This war is sometimes spoken of as a "leaderless war," but great
leaders came out of it. The names of Hull, Perry, and Lawrence are
memorable in its history; it was the war which made Andrew Jackson,
known as "Old Hickory," President of the United States in 1828. You
will read the story of his great victory in the Battle of New Orleans.

Some day you will read the life story of David Glasgow Farragut of
whom it is said that, with the exception of Nelson, the great English
admiral, "he was as great an admiral as ever sailed the broad or
narrow seas." Although the great work of Farragut was in the Civil
War, the story of his life began in the War of 1812 when he was but
ten years old. Admiral Farragut is reported as giving this
explanation, in the late years of his life, of his success in the
service of his country

"It was all owing to a resolution that I formed when I was ten years
old. My father was sent to New Orleans with the little navy we had, to
look after the treason of Burr. I accompanied him as cabin-boy. I had
some qualities that I thought made a man of me. I could swear like an
old salt, could drink as stiff a glass of grog as if I had doubled
Cape Horn, and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards,
and was fond of gambling in every shape. At the close of dinner one
day, my father turned everybody out of the cabin, locked the door, and
said to me:

"David, what do you mean to be?"

"'I mean to follow the sea,' I said."

{330}

"'Follow the sea!' exclaimed my father; 'yes, be a poor, miserable,
drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and
die in some fever hospital in a foreign clime?'

"'No, father,' I replied, 'I will tread the quarter-deck, and command
as you do!'

"'No, David; no boy ever trod the quarter-deck with such principles
as you have, and such habits as you exhibit. You will have to change
your whole course of life if you ever become a man.'

"My father left me and went on deck. I was stunned by the rebuke, and
overwhelmed with mortification. 'A p