"Texas is out of the map, Mr. Nolan. Have you seen Captain Back's
curious account of Sir Thomas Roe's Welcome?"

After that cruise I never saw Nolan again. I wrote to him at least twice
a year, for in that voyage we became even confidentially intimate; but
he never wrote to me. The other men tell me that in those fifteen years
he aged very fast, as well he might indeed, but that he was still the
same gentle, uncomplaining, silent sufferer that he ever was, bearing as
best he could his self-appointed punishment,--rather less social,
perhaps, with new men whom he did not know, but more anxious,
apparently, than ever to serve and befriend and teach the boys, some of
whom fairly seemed to worship him. And now it seems the dear old fellow
is dead. He has found a home at last, and a country.

Since writing this, and while considering whether or no I would print
it, as a warning to the young Nolans and Vallandighams and Tatnalls of
to-day of what it is to throw away a country, I have received from
Danforth, who is on board the "Levant," a letter which gives an account
of Nolan's last hours. It removes all my doubts about telling this
story. The reader will understand Danforth's letter, or the beginning of
it, if he will remember that after ten years of Nolan's exile every one
who had him in charge was in a very delicate position. The government
had failed to renew the order of 1807 regarding him. What was a man to
do? Should he let him go? What, then, if he were called to account by
the Department for violating the order of 1807? Should he keep him?
What, then, if Nolan should be liberated some day, and should bring an
action for false imprisonment or kidnapping against every man who had
had him in charge? I urged and pressed this upon Southard, and I have
reason to think that other officers did the same thing. But the