Navy--it must have been the first Crowninshield, though he is a man I do
not remember--was requested to put Nolan on board a Government vessel
bound on a long cruise, and to direct that he should be only so far
confined there as to make it certain that he never saw or heard of the
country. We had few long cruises then, and the navy was very much out of
favor; and as almost all of this story is traditional, as I have
explained, I do not know certainly what his first cruise was. But the
commander to whom he was intrusted--perhaps it was Tingey or Shaw,
though I think it was one of the younger men,--we are all old enough
now--regulated the etiquette and the precautions of the affair, and
according to his scheme they were carried out, I suppose, till Nolan
died.

When I was second officer of the Intrepid, some thirty years after, I
saw the original paper of instructions. I have been sorry ever since
that I did not copy the whole of it. It ran, however, much in this
way:--

"_Washington_," (with the date, which must have been late in 1807.)

"Sir,--You will receive from Lt. Neale the person of Philip Nolan, late
a Lieutenant in the United States Army.

"This person on his trial by court-martial expressed with an oath the
wish that he might 'never hear of the United States again.'

"The Court sentenced him to have his wish fulfilled.

"For the present, the execution of the order is intrusted by the
President to this department.