James Fenimore Cooper / American Men of Letters

by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

The fourth point was whether the account of the battle was written in a spirit of impartiality and justice. They all agreed that it was so written.

The fifth point was whether the writer of the criticism, upon which the suit was founded, had faithfully fulfilled the office of a reviewer. If not they were to give the facts upon which their conclusion was based. They unanimously agreed that the writer had not faithfully discharged his obligations as a reviewer; that he had indulged in personal imputations; that he was guilty of misquotations which materially changed the meaning; that his statements were incorrect in several particulars; and that his charge that Cooper had given to Elliott equal credit with Perry in the conduct of the battle was untrue. This last assertion, they add, was made after a careful examination by them of the history itself.

The sixth point was whether the review was true or not in its essential facts; and if untrue, in what particulars. They all agreed that it was untrue, and gave the particulars.

The seventh point was whether the review was written in a spirit of impartiality and justice. The majority decided that it was not so written. Here again Mr. Foot made a partial dissent. He considered the review to have been written under the influence of a wakeful sensibility, inconsiderately and unnecessarily aroused in defense of the reputation of a beloved and deceased friend.

The eighth point was to settle which of the two parties should be required to publish the full text of the decision at his own expense in newspapers published in New York, Washington, and Albany. The referees agreed that this was to be done by the defendant.

Thus ended this suit. For Cooper the result was a great personal triumph. He had had to contend with the prejudices of a nation. For months and years he had been persistently assailed with all the weapons that unscrupulous partisanship or unreasoning family affection could wield. He had been compelled to identify his own cause with that of a man who, in addition to unpopularity with members of his own profession, had drawn upon himself the hostility of a political party. He had been under the necessity of controverting, in some particulars, a generally accepted belief. Against him had been arrayed two of the ablest lawyers of the bar. Naval officers of reputation had on the witness stand criticised his theory of the battle and contradicted his statements. He had been assisted in the conduct of the case by his nephew; but outside of this he had received help from no one. Sympathy with him, there was little; desire for his success, there was less; and the referees could hardly fail to feel to some extent the influence that pervaded the whole country. In the face of all these odds he had fought the battle and won it. He had wrung respect and admiration from a hostile public sentiment which he had openly and contemptuously defied. Upon the essential matters in dispute the verdict of three men, of highest rank in their profession and skilled in the weighing of conflicting evidence, had been entirely in his favor.

Cooper followed up his victory by a pamphlet which appeared in August, 1843, entitled, "The Battle of Lake Erie: or, Answers to Messrs. Burges, Duer, and Mackenzie." In this he went fully over the ground. No reply was made to it; there was in fact none to be made. The popular tradition could best be maintained by silence. Silence at any rate during his lifetime was preserved, and silence in cases where it would have been creditable to have said something. It certainly affords justification additional to that already given, for the contemptuous opinion expressed by Cooper of the American press, that the newspapers which had been loudest in the denunciation of his history, never so much as alluded to the result of the trial brought to test authoritatively the fairness and impartiality of the narrative for which he had been condemned.

After reading patiently all that has been written on both sides of this question, it seems to me that not only was the verdict of the arbitrators a just one, but that Cooper was right in the view he took. Still, where evidence is conflicting there is ample room for difference of opinion; and in regard to the conduct of Elliott at Lake Erie the evidence is diametrically opposed. The only secure method, therefore, of obtaining and maintaining a comfortable bigotry of belief on the subject is to read carefully the testimony on one side and to despise the other so thoroughly as to refrain from even looking at it. This was then and has since been the course followed by the thick and thin partisans of Perry. But whether the conclusion be right or not at which Cooper arrived, there was never the slightest justification for the gross abuse to which he was subjected. He had everything to gain by falling in with the popular tradition and attacking Elliott. Nothing but lofty integrity and love of truth could have made him take the course he did. If a mistake at all, it was a mistake of judgment. But the charges brought against him were based in most instances upon deliberate misrepresentation of what he had said. This was especially true of the criticisms of Duer and Mackenzie. The perversion of meaning of one of his foot-notes is a striking instance of the unscrupulous nature of these attacks. In this Cooper had spoken of the vulgar opinion which celebrated as an act of special gallantry Perry's passing in an open boat from one ship to another as being the very least of his merits; that the same thing was done in the same engagement by others, including Elliott; that there was personal risk everywhere; and that Perry's real merit was his indomitable resolution not to be conquered, and the manner in which he sought new modes of victory when old ones failed. If this be depreciatory, it is depreciatory to say that greater honor is due to him who manifests the skill and fertility of resource of a commander than to him who exhibits the mere valor of a soldier. But in Duer's review of the "Naval History," and Mackenzie's "Life of Perry," the purport of the note was entirely changed. The concluding portion was dishonestly omitted, and a paragraph that gave to the victor of Lake Erie credit for generalship rather than soldiership was converted into an assertion that the risk he had run was of slight consequence.

This controversy brought in its train another libel suit. To the editor of the "Commercial Advertiser" the result had caused deep mortification. The reviewer also was naturally dissatisfied with a decision which left upon him the stigma of a libeler. He offered, if the case could be brought before a common jury for another trial, to pay double the amount of damages awarded, provided the result was against him. With such an arrangement Mr. Stone declined to have anything to do. He had had, he said, annoyance enough already with the suit. But he was tempted in a moment of vexation to indulge in remarks which implied that Cooper was in a hurry to get the sum awarded, with the object of putting it into Wall Street "for shaving purposes." The insinuation was uncalled for and unjustifiable; and as the editor subsequently admitted that it was only made in jest, it may be imputed to his credit that he had the grace to be ashamed of it. A libel suit, however, followed. It was at first decided in Cooper's favor. It was then carried up to the Court of Errors, and in December, 1845, more than a year after Mr. Stone's death, that tribunal reversed the decision. The result of the trial was hailed with the keenest delight by the Whig press of the state. "The Great Persecutor," as he was sometimes styled, had been finally foiled. "The rights of the press," said one of the newspapers, "are at last triumphant over the tyranny of courts and the vile constructions of the law of libel." The value of the victory, however, was largely lessened by the little respect in which the Court of Errors was held. This tribunal, which consisted in the majority of cases of the Chancellor and of the members of the state Senate, was swept away by the Constitution of 1846. Its influence had gone long before. Cooper was doubtless giving expression to the general feeling as well as venting his own indignation at this particular decision when he spoke of it, as he did a little later, as a "pitiful imitation of the House of Lords' system," by which a body of "small lawyers, country doctors, merchants, farmers," with occasionally a man of ability, were constituted the highest tribunal in the state.

Two other results followed incidentally this controversy about the battle of Lake Erie. One had the nature of comedy, the other partook rather of that of tragedy. Perry, as has been said, was a Rhode Islander, and many of the men he had with him had come from that state. Tristam Burges, in his lecture, had, in many instances, allowed his eloquence to get the better of his sense. In the preface to it, when published, he abandoned the latter altogether. He twice asserted, and gave his reasons for it, that "the fleet and battle of Erie" were to be regarded "as a part of the maritime affairs of Rhode Island." Apparently, however, the whole state took the same view. There seemed to be a feeling prevalent in it that its own reputation lay in destroying the reputation of Perry's second in command. In 1845 Elliott had a medal struck in honor of Cooper. It bore on one side the head of the author surrounded by the words, "The Personification of Honor, Truth, and Justice." At the suggestion of John Quincy Adams copies were sent to the various historical societies of the country. That statesman himself undertook their transmission. Accordingly one was forwarded among the rest to the Rhode Island Society. It reached its destination in March. It threw that body into a tumult of excitement. The trustees reflected upon it anxiously. They referred it to a committee. After prolonged brooding the committee gave birth to a preamble and two resolutions. These were reported to the Society at the meeting of the 10th of September. In one of the resolutions the letter of Adams was embodied, and he was thanked for the care and attention he had displayed in the discharge of the trust committed to him by Commodore Elliott. The second resolution recited substantially that Cooper had not been conducting himself properly in the matter, and had published opinions which the Society could not adopt or sanction. It therefore declined to accept the medal in his honor, and directed the president to transmit it to Adams with the request to return it to Commodore Elliott. Vigorous as this action may now seem, it did not then come up to the level of offended justice. There was to be no tampering with iniquity, even in high places. Elliott was not to succeed in his impudent effort to skulk behind the character of Adams, nor was Adams to escape reproof for the base uses to which he had allowed himself to be put. A motion was accordingly made to strike out the resolution conveying to that statesman the thanks of the Society. It was carried unanimously. The medal was accordingly returned to him with the request that he send it to Elliott with an attested copy of the resolution. Adams's conception of an Historical Society was different from that then entertained in Rhode Island. He clearly thought it no part of their business to be officially engaged in upholding the reputation of favorite sons, or defending the character of heroes. His reply was curt, not to say tart. "I decline the office," he wrote, "requested of me by the Historical Society of Rhode Island, and hold the medal and the copy of the resolution, which they request me to transmit to Commodore Elliott, to be delivered to any person whom they, or you by their direction, may authorize to receive them."