ther bureau, I
am told, the answer to questions is, that, though it is true that
an officer was kept abroad all his life, his name was not Nolan. A
venerable friend of mine in Boston, who discredits all tradition,
still recollects this "Nolan court-martial." One of the most
accurate of my younger friends had noticed Nolan's death in the
newspaper, but recollected "that it was in September, and not in
August." A lady in Baltimore writes me, I believe in good faith,
that Nolan has two widowed sisters residing in that neighborhood. A
correspondent of the Philadelphia Despatch believed "the article
untrue, as the United States corvette 'Levant' was lost at sea
nearly three years since, between San Francisco and San Juan." I
may remark that this uncertainty as to the place of her loss rather
adds to the probability of her turning up after three years in Lat.
2 deg. 11' S., Long. 131 deg. W. A writer in the New Orleans
Picayune, in a careful historical paper, explained at length that I
had been mistaken all through; that Philip Nolan never went to sea,
but to Texas; that there he was shot in battle, March 21, 1801, and
by orders from Spain every fifth man of his party was to be shot, had
they not died in prison. Fortunately, however, he left his papers
and maps, which fell into the hands of a friend of the Picayune's
correspondent. This friend proposes to publish them,--and the
public will then have, it is to be hoped, the true history of
Philip Nolan, the man without a country.

With all these continuations, however, I have nothing to do. I can
only repeat that my Philip Nolan is pure fiction. I cannot send his
scrap-book to my friend who asks for it, because I have it not to
send.

I remembered, when I was collecting material for my story, that in
General Wilkinson's galimatias, which he calls his "Memoirs," is
frequent reference to a Jorkins-like partner of his, of the name of
Nolan, who, at some time near the beginning of this century, was
killed in Texas. Whenever Wilkinson found himself in rather a
deeper bog than usual, he used to justify himself by saying that he
could not explain such or such a charge because "the papers
referring to it were lost when _Mr. Nolan_ was imprisoned in
Texas." Finding this mythical character in the mythical leg