He never alluded so directly to his story again; but from one and another officer I have learned, in thirty years, what I am telling.  When we parted from him in St. Thomas harbour, at the end of our cruise, I was more sorry than I can tell.  I was very glad to meet him again in 1830; and later in life, when I thought I had some influence in Washington, I moved heaven and earth to have him discharged.  But it was like getting a ghost out of prison.  They pretended there was no such man, and never was such a man.  They will say so at the Department now!  Perhaps they do not know.  It will not be the first thing in the service of which the Department appears to know nothing!

There is a story that Nolan met Burr once on one of our vessels, when a party of Americans came on board in the Mediterranean.  But this I believe to be a lie; or, rather, it is a myth, ben trovato, involving a tremendous blowing-up with which he sunk Burr,—­asking him how he liked to be “without a country.”  But it is clear from Burr’s life, that nothing of the sort could have happened; and I mention this only as an illustration of the stories which get a-going where there is the least mystery at bottom.

Philip Nolan, poor fellow, repented of his folly, and then, like a man, submitted to the fate he had asked for.  He never intentionally added to the difficulty or delicacy of the charge of those who had him in hold.  Accidents would happen; but never from his fault.  Lieutenant Truxton told me that, when Texas was annexed, there was a careful discussion among the officers, whether they should get hold of Nolan’s handsome set of maps and cut Texas out of it—­from the map of the world and the map of Mexico.  The United States had been cut out when the atlas was bought for him.  But it was voted, rightly enough, that to do this would be virtually to reveal to him what had happened, or, as Harry Cole said, to make him think Old Burr had succeeded.  So it was from no fault of Nolan’s that a great botch happened at my own table, when, for a short time, I was in command of the George Washington corvette, on the South American station.  We were lying in the La Plata, and some of the officers, who had been on shore and had just joined again, were entertaining us with accounts of their misadventures in riding the half-wild horses of Buenos Ayres.  Nolan was at table, and was in an unusually bright and talkative mood.  Some story of a tumble reminded him of an adventure of his own when he was catching wild horses in Texas with his adventurous cousin, at a time when he must have been quite a boy.  He told the story with a good deal of spirit—­so much so, that the silence which often follows a good story hung over the table for an instant, to be broken by Nolan himself.  For he asked perfectly unconsciously: 

“Pray, what has become of Texas?  After the Mexicans got their independence, I thought that province of Texas would come forward very fast.  It is really one of the finest regions on earth; it is the Italy of this continent.  But I have not seen or heard a word of Texas for nearly twenty years.”