ectly to his story again; but from one and another
officer I have learned, in thirty years, what I am telling. When we
parted from him in St. Thomas harbour, at the end of our cruise, I was
more sorry than I can tell. I was very glad to meet him again in 1830;
and later in life, when I thought I had some influence in Washington,
I moved heaven and earth to have him discharged. But it was like
getting a ghost out of prison. They pretended there was no such man,
and never was such a man. They will say so at the Department now!
Perhaps they do not know. It will not be the first thing in the
service of which the Department appears to know nothing!

There is a story that Nolan met Burr once on one of our vessels, when
a party of Americans came on board in the Mediterranean. But this I
believe to be a lie; or, rather, it is a myth, _ben trovato_,
involving a tremendous blowing-up with which he sunk Burr,--asking him
how he liked to be "without a country." But it is clear from Burr's
life, that nothing of the sort could have happened; and I mention this
only as an illustration of the stories which get a-going where there
is the least mystery at bottom.

Philip Nolan, poor fellow, repented of his folly, and then, like a
man, submitted to the fate he had asked for. He never intentionally
added to the difficulty or delicacy of the charge of those who had him
in hold. Accidents would happen; but never from his fault. Lieutenant
Truxton told me that, when Texas was annexed, there was a careful
discussion among the officers, whether they should get hold of Nolan's
handsome set of maps and cut Texas out of it--from the map of the
world and the map of Mexico. The United States had been cut out when
the atlas was bought for him. But it was voted, rightly enough, that
to do this would be virtually to reveal to him what had happened, or,
as Harry Cole said, to make him think Old Burr had succeeded. So it
was from no fault of Nolan's that a great botch happened at my own
table, when, for a short time, I was in command of the _George
Washington_ corvette, on the South American station. We were lying in
the La Plata, and some of the officers, who had been on shore and had
just joined again, were entertaining us with accounts of their
misadventures in riding the half-wild horses of Buenos Ayres. Nolan
was at table, and was in an unusually bright and talkative mood. Some
story of a tumble reminded him of an adventure of his own when he was