But he said that his love for freedom was such, and such his admiration of the heroism of the Americans in drawing the sword in defence of popular rights, against such a gigantic power as that of Great Britain, that he had declined receiving the Cross of St. Louis, and had abjured the Roman Catholic religion, the religion of his forefathers, that he might, with all his energies, enter into the service of America.
Believing all this, and wishing, as we have said, to compliment France, Congress placed its finest frigate in the hands of Landais. The result, until the time when the Alliance left L’Orient, the reader knows.
The Alliance, with Mr. Lee on board, at length reached Philadelphia. The conduct of Landais, whose title to command his own men doubted, was so insane that the officers, passengers and crew all became incensed. Mr. Lee was prominent in this movement. The ship was committed to the officer next in rank. A court of inquiry was held, in which Mr. Lee testified strongly against the captain as insane. The charge was so fully sustained that he was dismissed from the service of the United States. It was not deemed expedient to waste time by prosecuting the more serious charges against him. He was consequently consigned to insignificance. Thus thrown out of service, Landais took up his residence in the city of New York. Destitute of funds, he was miserably poor, living, one can hardly tell how, upon an income of but two hundred dollars a year. Still he retained all his ancient pride, maintaining the air of a gentleman, and refusing any assistance which could indicate that he was in want.
He contrived, at every session of Congress, whether at Philadelphia or Washington, to make his appearance, and to urge a memorial expressive of the injustice which he thought had been done him, and demanding restitution to his rank and the arrears of pay. It is said that at one time he was reduced almost to nothing, when an unexpected division of some prize-money gave him an annuity of one hundred and five dollars. With true French hilarity he said, “I have now two dollars a week on which to live, and an odd dollar for charity at the end of the year.”
To the last he kept up the exterior and the courtly bearing of a gentleman. All that was visible of his linen was ever spotlessly clean. His thread-bare coat was brushed with the utmost neatness. On ceremonious occasions, or when making a call, he wore conspicuously a pair of paste knee-buckles, yellow silk stockings, carefully preserved, though much faded, and which were adorned with what were then called red clocks.
Claiming to be an officer in the United States Navy, unjustly deprived of command, he ever wore upon his hat the American cockade. On the Fourth of July, and on the day which commemorated the evacuation of the city of New York by the British troops, Landais, who had assumed the title of admiral, invariably dressed himself in his old Continental uniform. The large brass buttons, though they had lost their brilliance, attracted attention. The long skirts of his blue coat reached almost to his heels, enveloping his thin, shrivelled form. The sleeves seemed to have shrunken, for they scarcely came to his wrists. He thus paraded the streets, with all the airs of a nobleman of the ancient regime.
His spirit of independence was such that he refused all presents, even the most trifling. A gentleman, on one occasion, sent him a dozen bottles of Newark cider. He returned them because it was not in his power to reciprocate.
He became, with advancing years, very irritable in temper. In one of the debates in Congress in reference to his claims, a member spoke, as he thought, disrespectfully of him. He dressed himself in his uniform, belted a small sword at his side, and repairing to the gallery of the House, announced to all the acquaintances he met, that he was prepared to fight a duel with any gentleman who might give him occasion to do so. “If there is any bad blood in Congress,” said he, “I am prepared to draw it.” He always affirmed that he, and not Jones, captured the Serapis. The ship, he said, was compelled to surrender because he raked her with the guns of the Alliance.
Thus this strange man lived for forty years, until he had attained the age of eighty-seven. He died, or, to use his own language, disappeared from this life, in the summer of 1818. As he was buried in the church-yard of St. Patrick’s Cathedral it is probable that he had returned to the Roman Catholic faith. Some unknown friend raised a plain marble slab over his remains with the inscription, beneath a cross:
A la Mémoire