Note 1132 — Chapter VIII

This man was the elder Decatur, father of the more famous officer of the same name. He had had a career in the American Navy as honorable but not so distinguished as that of Truxtun; and his service had been ended by an unhappy circumstance, but one less humiliating than that which severed Truxtun's connection with the Navy.

The unworthiest act of the expiring Federalist Congress of 1801, and one which all Republicans eagerly supported, was that authorizing most of the ships of the Navy to be sold or laid up and most of the naval officers discharged. (Act of March 3, 1801, Annals, 6th Cong. 1st and 2d Sess. 1557-59.) Among the men whose life profession was thus cut off, and whose notable services to their country were thus rewarded, was Commodore Stephen Decatur, who thereafter engaged in business in Philadelphia.