Stuart had two distinct artistic periods. His English work shows plainly the influence of his English contemporaries, and might easily be mistaken, as it has been, for the best work of Romney or of Gainsborough. But his American work, almost the very first he did after his return to his native soil, proclaims aloud the virility and robustness of his independence. The rich, juicy coloring so marked in his fine portraits painted here, replaces the tender pearly grays so predominant in his pictures painted there. The delicate precision of his early brush gives way to the masterful freedom of his later one. His English portraits might have been limned by Romney or by Gainsborough, but his American ones could have been painted only by Gilbert Stuart. This greatest of American painters died in Boston, July 27, 1828, and was interred in an unmarked grave in the Potter’s Field.
XIII
David Porter
United States Navy
HILE this country and the world are yet enthralled by the magical victories won by the American navy over the fleets of Spain, it is instructive to recall how the exploits of Uncle Sam’s boys, on the seas, have always bordered on the marvellous. The doings of Paul Jones in the Revolutionary War, and of Truxtun in the war with France; of Decatur and of Preble in the war with Tripoli; of Bainbridge and of Stewart, and of Hull and of Perry, in the second war with England; and of Farragut and of Jouett and of Cushing in the war between the States, seem, each one, too incredible to have a like successor, yet nothing heretofore in naval warfare has approached the victories of Dewey and of Sampson. With all these glittering names, we have still another name the peer of the best, possessing in addition the spur of naval heredity—the name of Porter.
There have been three officers of high rank in the United States navy bearing the name of David Porter. The first served the Continental Congress; his son, born in 1780, gave the best years of his life to his country on the sea; and his grandson, after having four times received the thanks of Congress for his services during the Civil War, died at the head of the navy, with the rank of Admiral, in 1891. David Porter, second of the name, began his naval career in action, having been, at the age of eighteen, appointed a midshipman on board the frigate Constellation, and with her, soon after, participated in the fight where the French frigate L’Insurgente was captured by Truxtun with the loss of one man killed and two men wounded. Porter subsequently distinguished himself in the war with Tripoli, was promoted to a captaincy, and early in the war of 1812 sailed from New York, in command of the Essex, on one of the most eventful cruises ever had by a man-of-war. His first feat was to capture the Alert, in an engagement of eight minutes, without any loss or damage to his ship; and so well directed was the fire of the Essex, that the Alert had seven feet of water in her hold when she surrendered. This was the first British war vessel taken in the conflict. Porter then turned his attention to the destruction of the
English whale-fishery in the Pacific Ocean, and sailed on this errand, around the Horn, for Valparaiso. He made such havoc with the British shipping that the loss footed up to two million and a half of dollars and four hundred men prisoners.