I have always supposed that Colonel Morgan himself took the proceedings of the court to Washington City, and explained them to Mr. Jefferson.  Certain it is that the President approved them,—­certain, that is, if I may believe the men who say they have seen his signature.  Before the Nautilus got round from New Orleans to the Northern Atlantic coast with the prisoner on board the sentence had been approved, and he was a man without a country.

The plan then adopted was substantially the same which was necessarily followed ever after.  Perhaps it was suggested by the necessity of sending him by water from Fort Adams and Orleans.  The Secretary of the 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 a date, which have been late in 1807).

    “Sir,—­You will receive from Lieutenant 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.

    “You will take the prisoner on board your ship, and keep him there
    with such precautions as shall prevent his escape.

    “You will provide him with such quarters, rations, and clothing as
    would be proper for an officer of his late rank, if he were a
    passenger on your vessel on the business of his Government.

“The gentlemen on board will make any arrangements agreeable to themselves regarding his society.  He is to be exposed to no indignity of any kind, nor is he ever unnecessarily to be reminded that he is a prisoner.

“But under no circumstances is he ever to hear of his country or to see any information regarding it, and you will specially caution all