N.

Pathetic letters such as this appear often in the columns of the
newspapers published in the early part of this century; and are
usually accompanied by petitions from the relatives and friends of the
pressed man, begging that Congress take some action to secure American
sailors from such outrages. But year after year the practice went on,
and higher and higher grew the enmity between England and the United
States. Among the sailors who suffered impressment at the hands of the
British were many who afterward in the naval battles of the ensuing
war won ample revenge from the nation that had so abused their
liberties.

Most prominent of all these men was David Porter, who, from the humble
station of a cabin boy on his father's ship in 1796, rose in twenty
years to be commodore in the United States navy. The name of Porter is
one famous in the naval annals of the United States; and probably
there never existed a family in which the love for the life of a
fighting jack-tar was so strong as among these representative American
sailors. David Porter, sen., and Samuel Porter served the American
Colonies dashingly upon the sea in the Revolution. Of David Porter,
jun., we shall have much to say in this volume. Of his children the
eldest, William D., rose to the post of commodore, United States navy,
and died of wounds received in the civil war; Henry O. Porter was
first lieutenant of the "Hatteras" when she sunk before the fire of
the Confederate ship "Alabama;" Thomas Porter served in the Mexican
navy; Hambleton Porter died of yellow-fever while a midshipman in the
United States navy; Lieut. Theodoric Porter, U.S.A., was the first
officer killed in the Mexican war; and Admiral David D. Porter,
U.S.N., by virtue of his exploits on blue water and in the ditches and
bayous back of Vicksburg during the civil war, now stands at the head
of living naval officers.

But to return to David Porter. He was sixteen years old, when, in
1796, his father, having obtained command of a vessel in the West
India trade, determined to take the lad to sea, that he might learn
the profession of his ancestors. It was hardly a favorable time to
inspire an independent boy with admiration for the life of an American
merchant sailor. The United States had no navy to protect its merchant
ships; and the British cruisers that scoured the ocean felt little
hesitation about boarding the ships of the infant nation, and
kidnapping such sailors as they migh