and toil which it cost to conquer the Western Continent from wild men and wild nature. It is now three hundred and seventy-six years since Columbus first landed upon one of its outlying islands, and still the work is much less than half done. What lives have been lost! What lives have been spent! What anguish has been endured! What labors have been performed!

For twenty-six years longer Champlain continued to preside over the interests of the colony he had planted. Sometimes we see him at the French court, pleading for it before the king or his ministers; and sometimes deep in the heart of the wilderness, fighting for it with savage foes. While other men were only concerned to gather a rich store of furs, he thought of nothing but the lasting welfare of the settlement, the glory of France, and the salvation of the Indians. He was a brave, pure, and chivalric gentleman. Many years after his death, the Indians used to relate, with wonder and admiration, that when they entertained him in their villages, and offered all they had for his use, he was irreproachable toward their women. One must be acquainted both with the French of that day and with the customs of the Indians, to appreciate all the significance of such a fact.

Champlain died at Quebec, on Christmas day, 1635, aged sixty-eight years. His last thoughts were for his colony, which was still feeble, and never more needed his care than when he was about to leave it forever. The little company of settlers, soldiers, and priests sadly followed his remains to their church, where one of them pronounced a funeral oration, and where they afterwards built a monument to his memory.

DEATH OF COMMODORE DECATUR.

I SUPPOSE we all use more freedom in speaking of one another than we do in speaking to one another. Consequently, almost any person can destroy a friendship or embitter an enmity by reporting to one man what another man has said of him. To do this is justly esteemed one of the meanest of all actions, as it is assuredly one of the most mischievous. The duel in which Commodore Decatur fell was directly caused by this bad, dastardly practice.

Stephen Decatur, born in Maryland, in 1779, was the FARRAGUT of his time. His father before him was a gallant officer in the infant navy of the United States, captured several British ships in the revolutionary war, and was retained in the service after the peace. In the year 1800, he was the Commodore of the American fleet of thirteen vessels cruising about the West Indies; but when Mr. Jefferson reduced the navy, in 1801, Commodore Decatur was retired, and he became a merchant in Philadelphia, where he died in 1808. The old commodore, however, lived long enough to see his son a captain in the navy, and the darling of his countrymen.

Entering the service as midshipman in 1798, when he was nineteen, he was a lieutenant at twenty, and at twenty-three he had reached the rank of first lieutenant of a brig, the captain of which was that very James Barron who afterwards killed him. Two years later, when our brilliant little war with Algiers was at its height, Decatur was in command of the brig Enterprise, one of the vessels of the fleet in the Mediterranean, and it was while commanding the Enterprise that he performed the exploit which made him a favorite hero of the American people.

The reader remembers, of course, that the Algerines had had the luck to catch a fine American frigate, the Philadelphia, aground and helpless, with her guns overboard; and that they captured her and took her into the harbor of Tripoli, where they were fitting her out for a cruise. Bainbridge, her captain, while a prisoner at Tripoli, contrived to send word to Commodore Preble that the Philadelphia was carelessly guarded and could easily be surprised and burnt. The Commodore consulted Lieutenant Decatur upon the project, and Decatur, the bravest of the brave, supported it with all the enthusiasm of his age and character. Commodore Preble came into the scheme, and named young Decatur commander of the expedition. Lieutenant Decatur called for volunteers, and every man and boy on board his brig expressed a willingness to join. Sixty-two of the best men were picked from the eager crew, who, with twelve officers, were transferred to a small Algerian vessel belonging to Tripoli, captured a few days before, and now rechristened the Intrepid.

It was a still, fine evening in February, 1803, at ten o'clock, when the Intrepid glided slowly and noiselessly into the harbor, Decatur at the helm, a Greek pilot at his side, and the crew lying along the deck. So complete was the surprise, and so well concerted the attack, that in just ten minutes from the time the Intrepid touched the frigate the Americans had possession of her. Decatur was the second man to reach her deck, Charles Morris, midshipman, having jumped two seconds before him. Everything having been provided beforehand for burning the ship, the fire burst forth with such unexpected rapidity that the Intrepid narrowly escaped catching. The work having been accomplished, a light breeze from shore sprang up in the nick of time and wafted the little vessel gently out of the harbor, lighted on her way by the flames, and saluted by the harmless thunder of Algerian guns.

This gallant exploit made Decatur a captain. Without dwelling on his subsequent career, I can truly say that it was all of a piece with this brilliant opening.

Far different was it with James Barron. Barron, a native of Virginia, and, like Decatur, the son of a revolutionary commo

dore, entered the navy in the same year as Decatur, and out. stripped him in the race for promotion. A year after he entered the service, being then thirty-one years of age, he was a captain, and he continued to rise in the esteem of his countrymen until the year 1807, when a sad misfortune befell him, which cast a shadow over all his subsequent life.

ranean.

June 22d, 1807, the United States being at peace with all the world, the American frigate Chesapeake, thirty-eight guns, under command of Commodore Barron, left her anchorage in Hampton Roads, and stood out to sea, bound for the MediterAbout the same hour the British frigate Leopard, fifty guns, which had been lying for some time at the same anchorage, also put to sea, and being in better trim than the Chesapeake, and much better manned, got ahead of her some miles. But at three in the afternoon she wore round, bore down upon the Chesapeake, and sent a boat to her, with a despatch demanding to search the American ship for four deserters from the English navy. Commodore Barron replied that he knew of no such deserters, and that his orders did not allow his crew to be mustered by any officers but their own. No sooner had the boat returned with this reply, than the British ship fired a broadside full into the American at short range. The Chesapeake, her decks littered with stores and animals, her crew undisciplined, her warlike apparatus all unready for use, could not fire a shot in her defence; and consequently, when, by the continuous fire of the Leopard, three of the American crew had been killed and eighteen wounded, one of whom was the commodore himself, and when there were twenty-one shot in the hull of the Chesapeake, Barron struck his colors. The English captain made the search, took away the four alleged deserters, and sailed off, leaving the crippled Chesapeake to get back to Hampton Roads as best she could.

Commodore Barron was tried by a court-martial for going to sea unprepared to defend his ship, and the public clamored for his punishment. His defence was that his captain had informed him in writing that the ship was ready to sail, and that, the United States and Great Britain being at peace, the attack was not to have been anticipated. The aourt pronounced the defence

msufficient, and sentenced him to three years' suspension with out pay. When the war broke out in 1812, he was not appointed to a ship.

Among those who opposed the reinstatement of Barron were the majority of the naval captains, and no one opposed it so openly and decidedly as Decatur. He thought that Barron had been to blame in the affair of the Chesapeake. He also thought that, as there were so few ships in the navy, they ought to be commanded by men who had distinguished themselves during the war. It is evident, too, that he had lent a too credulous ear to the calumnies in circulation respecting Barron's conduct since the Chesapeake disaster. In short, he had a very bad opinion of Commodore Barron as an officer, and this bad opinion he was in the habit of expressing with the careless frankness of a sailor. Mean intermeddlers communicated the fact, with the usual exaggerations, to Barron, who was sore and sensitive from his long endurance of what he felt to be injustice. In June, 1819, he addressed a note to Decatur to this effect:

"SIR, I have been informed in Norfolk that you have said that you could insult me with impunity, or words to that effect. If you have said so you will no doubt avow it, and I shall expect to hear from you."

Commodore Decatur's reply was evidently intended to be offensive. The italics are his own:

"SIR,I have received your communication of the 12th instant. Before you could have been entitled to the information you have asked of me, you should have given up the name of your informer. That frankness which ought to characterize our profession required it. I shall not, however, refuse to answer you on that account, but shall be as candid in my communication to you as your letter or the case will warrant.

"Whatever I may have thought or said, in the very frequent and free conversations I have had respecting you and your conduct, I feel a thorough conviction that I never could have been