22. V:45. Before I left my house this Morning to go to my
Office, W. S. Smith came
in, and told me that Commodore
Decatur, had just been brought in from Bladensburg,
mortally wounded in a duel with Commodore
James Barron, who was also wounded; but not dangerously; I
went immediately to Decatur’s house; on the way, met Captain’s M’Donough, and Ballard, who were coming from it, and
whose information was discouraging, but not decisive. At the house, I
saw, Genls.
Brown and Harper, Coll. Bomford and E. Wyer. Brown and Harper were flattered
by some uncertainties of D
r Lovell, the Surgeon General,
who I supposed thinks it humane to keep Mrs Decatur and her father who is with her in suspense
as long as possible— Wyer, who had seen Decatur told me that he could
not survive the day— He died between nine and ten O’Clock this Evening.
The Nation has lost in him one of its heroes— One who has illustrated
its History and given grace and dignity to its character in the eyes of
the world. He was warm-hearted, cheerful, unassuming, gentle in
deportment, friendly and hospitable; beloved in social life; with a soul
all devoted to his Country, and a sense of honour; too disdainful of
life, since it could not attain that highest summit of magnaminity which
deliberately refuses the guilt and exposure of private War. He has
fallen in a duel, and his dying breath was a sigh, of compunction that
it was not in his Country’s cause— The sensation in this City and
neighbourhood produced by this Catastrophe was unusually great. But the
Lamentations at the practice of duelling were and will be fruitless as
they always are— Forbes called at
my house this Evening; he had been sitting an hour with Barron, who is
at Beale’s Congress Hotel on
Capitol Hill. He has a Ball in his body; which spared his life, by
hitting and glancing from the hip-bone. The cause of the duel is said to
have been Decatur’s resistance, as one of the Commissioners of the Navy,
to the restoration of Barron to the Naval Service— Barron had been
suspended for five years from 1807. by the sentence of a Court-Martial,
of which Decatur was a member, for the 291unfortunate affair of the Chesapeake Frigate with Berkley’s Squadron— The five years
expired, during our late War with Great Britain. Barron was then in
Europe, and did not return to the United States during our War with G.
B. though he made application for a passage in the John Adams, from
Gothenburg in June 1814. After the Peace he came back, and claimed to be
restored to active employment: which it is said Decatur prevented him
from obtaining. He has also spoken of him in slighting and contemptuous
terms— A Correspondence of mutual crimination and defiance has been
passing between them since last June; and is now to be published. I left
at Decatur’s house offers of any service in my power, or in that of
Mrs Adams, who also called herself and made the
same tender— I had requested to see Mr Poletica the Russian
Minister and he came, between three and four O’Clock. I mentioned to him
the President’s intention to send
in a Message to Congress, conformable to the wishes which had been
expressed by his Government; and asked him if it would be satisfactory
to the Emperor that public
reference should be made to the sentiments avowed by him, concerning the
settlement of our differences with Spain. He said he was sure it would
be entirely satisfactory, and even very gratifying to the Emperor. I
asked him to shew me again the despatch from Count Nesselrode, and the Letters
from Capodistrias, and
Pozzo di Borgo, which he
had shewn me before. He promised to bring them to me to-morrow.— He also
mentioned a singular Letter from La
Serna the Spanish Charge d’Affaires to him complaining
that I had alledged in a Letter, now published, to the Chairman of the Committee of foreign
Relations, that we had been told by France and Russia, that in the
present State of our differences with Spain, all Europe was in our
favour and against Spain—and with something like niaiserie, asking him whether he had told me so. La Serna, he
said had written precisely such another Letter to Mr De
Neuville, but had not yet sent it, owing to the Distress
of De Neuville and his family consequent upon the news of the
Assassination of the Duke de
Berri. He said it was easy for him to have answered La
Serna, that for what he said or wrote he was accountable to his own
master only; but as they were upon good terms he had answered him that
he certainly had never arrogated the absurdity of speaking in the name
of all Europe. And that in the absence of all suggestions of reasons by
Spain for withholding the ratification of the Treaty, the Emperor would
very naturally conclude that the Treaty was favorable to Spain, since
the King had liberally bestowed
favours upon every person concerned in the making of it— He said he
would shew me the Letters to-morrow— General Van Rensselaer came
for a certificate that a Commission had issued to Mr
Skinner, as District U.S. judge for the Northern District of
New-York— The object is to disqualify him as a candidate for the Senate
of New-York, as he now is— Rensselaer is a Clintonian— I gave him the
certificate— I called at the Presidents, and he gave me the draft of a
Message to Congress, with authority to shew it to Poletica, and to Mr Lowndes, Chairman of the Committee of
foreign relations, whom he requested me to see and consult. I called
twice this Evening at his lodgings, but he was not at home. I left a
request that he would call at my house on his way to the Capitol
to-morrow Morning. Mr Calhoun’s
child died this day.
