350
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1856
Stevens, who was afterward so highly lauded for his conduct on that occasion, has been dropped and stricken down. It is disgraceful. I come again, in conclusion, to the action of Commodore Hull in the Ohio. It was stated by the Senators from Delaware, that the letter of Secretary Paulding, retracting his reprimand of the four ward-room officers of the Ohio, should forever have closed that transaction. It is a singular coincidence that those officers should have been then implicated together in disorder and insur- rectionary or mutinous conduct, for it amounted to that. They were subsequently designated in the navy as the "four mutineers." It is singular that these men should have been selected subse- quently to act together on the naval board. I propose to show, however, that the letter of Secretary Paulding, pretending to cancel these charges, did not close the transaction forever. I will read Commodore Hull's replies, and let the Senate judge from them whether or not Commodore Hull felt that he had injured these individuals, or whether he himself had been deeply wounded. After he had received the first letter from the Department, author- izing him to reprimand these gentlemen, he addressed a letter to them in which he said: [We omit the letter.] This shows the feelings of Hull when he received and read to them the reprimand administered by the Department. I pro- pose, however, to advert more particularly to what he said of Lieutenant Du Pont's conduct on that occasion. In a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, dated March 21, 1841,_Commodore Hull says: "I have long since been convinced that Lieutenant Du Pont is the leader in all the disaffection which has so unhappily reigned in the Ohio, and I am fully persuaded that the pernicious influ- ence he has exercised over others has effected more injury to the service than he will ever be able to repair." That was his opinion of Lieutenant Du Pont: I leave gentle- men to draw their own conclusions from it. I have no disposition to go beyond the records, and I have not done so. I have a right to advert to public records, and they sustain me in what I say. It is evident that Commodore Hull felt deeply mortified by the action of the Department in withdrawing the reprimand first administered to these officers. This is shown by the correspond- ence of Commodore Hull. I read from his letter to the Department of December 5, 1840: [We omit lengthy quotations from Commo- dore Hull.]
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