unmindful of the studies connected with my present profession; but
you will easily conceive my military ardor has suffered abatement.
Indeed, it is my design, as soon as circumstances will permit, to
throw the feather out of my cap and resume it in my hand. Yet,
should war come at last, my enthusiasm will be rekindled, and then
who knows but that I may yet write my history with my sword?

"Yours truly,

"WINFIELD SCOTT."


[Footnote A: "If idle, be not solitary; if solitary, be not idle." An
apothegm of Burton paraphrased by Johnson, "My Motto."]


Scott rejoined the army at Baton Rouge, La., in 1811, and was soon
appointed Judge Advocate on the trial of a colonel charged with gross
negligence in discipline and administration. By dilatory pleas this
officer had several times escaped justice, but on this trial he was
found guilty and censured. In the winter of 1811-'12 Scott was
frequently on staff duty with General Wade Hampton at New Orleans, and
while there saw the first steam vessel that ever floated on the
Mississippi.

On May 20, 1812, Captain Scott embarked at New Orleans for Washington
_via_ Baltimore, accompanying General Hampton and Lieutenant Charles
K. Gardner. As the vessel on which they had taken passage entered near
the Capes of Virginia it passed a British frigate lying off the bar.
In a short time they met a Hampton pilot boat going out to sea. This