EDWARD E. HALE.


THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

I [Note 1] suppose that very few casual readers of the "New York Herald"
of August 13, 1863, observed, [Note 2] in an obscure corner, among the
"Deaths," the announcement,--

"NOLAN. Died, on board U. S. Corvette 'Levant,' [Note 3] Lat. 2° 11' S.,
Long. 131° W., on the 11th of May, PHILIP NOLAN."

I happened to observe it, because I was stranded at the old Mission
House in Mackinaw, waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did not
choose to come, and I was devouring to the very stubble all the current
literature I could get hold of, even down to the deaths and marriages in
the "Herald." My memory for names and people is good, and the reader
will see, as he goes on, that I had reason enough to remember Philip
Nolan. There are hundreds of readers who would have paused at that
announcement, if the officer of the "Levant" who reported it had chosen
to make it thus: "Died, May 11, THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY." For it was
as "The Man without a Country" that poor Philip Nolan had generally been
known by the officers who had him in charge during some fifty years, as,
indeed, by all the men who sailed under them. I dare say there is many a
man who has taken wine with him once a fortnight, in a three years'
cruise, who never knew that his name was "Nolan," or whether the poor
wretch had any name at all.

There can now be no possible harm in telling this poor creature's story.
Reason enough there has been till now, ever since Madison's [Note 4]