Manifest of the Charges Preferred to the Navy Department

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Excerpt from Manifest of the Charges Preferred to the Navy Department: And Subsequently to Congress, Against Jesse Duncan Elliot, Esq., A Captain in the Navy of the United States, for Unlawful Conduct While Commodore of the Late Mediterranean Squadron, And a Refutation of the Recrimination Raised by That Officer For a trespass on your attention, I trust a sufficient apology will be found in the documents of this publication. Yet a few explanatory remarks may be respectful and proper. More than three years ago, I had suffered from the unlawful conduct of an officer of high grade in the navy, while serving in his squadron. I had, however, full confidence in the justness and adequacy of the laws for the government of the Navy, for my redress. These pointed out a lawful mode by which to seek redress, and I certainly hoped to have obtained it by adopting that mode. Hence I determined, in my own mind, at the very juncture when I was made to feel cruelty to the heart's core, that if I lived, I would, when I should have returned, prefer charges. I have been guilty of no haste, no importunity, no attempt at uniting any extraneous influence to bring it about, resting simply on the intrinsic justness of the cause. I was in a kind of abeyance for justice, contingent to a vague perception of some opposing obstacle to the realization of my lawful expectation of redress. Yet I thought that whatever held me in this abeyance, would, in reasonable time be removed. Having awaited in this state of expectation patiently for eighteen months, until the published report of the vicinal approach of the Mediterranean squadron, I then, within a few weeks of its expected arrival, officially charged the officer with his misdeeds, virtually asking his arrest and trial. This inceptive step toward redress having been made, lawfully and discreetly, it was not impugned as being either unlawful or indiscreetly exhibited, but my complaint was respectfully acknowledged, and I was informed in that acknowledgment, that it had been put on file. Soon thereafter a developement of further unjust conduct, emanating from the same officer, induced me to reiterate my charges to the successor of the retired authority first appealed to, with the additional complaint this recent developement gave me reason to prefer. This new appeal was also respectfully received, and the additional charge had also been placed on file. Still cherishing confidence that my lawful complaint, urged in a manner at which no exception had been taken, would, as soon as more important business left leisure to attend to mine, receive due attention, I again awaited patiently the result. Propriety and respect caused this course - nordid a single act of importunity, verbally or in writing, emanate from me to abstract from the integrity of the course named, or lessen its claim to strict fairness. Nearly two years previous to the presentation of my charges, a dispassionate communication, fraught with similar tenor as that which mine exhibited, had been addressed, also to the proper authority, by one who had the right in my absence to make an inceptive charge. This, too, was respectfully acknowledged and filed, and information conveyed in that acknowledgment, that the wishes expressed in it on a point that admitted of speedy action, had been virtually anticipated. From that source, neither, did there emanate any further urgency, much less importunity. The whole course of that part of the government which had control of these matters, was characterized, after my return to this country, by so much manifest consideration and official sympathy for my situation, past and then present, that any other course than silence was held by me as improper and unofficer-like, and as savouring of a want of confidence without having any reason to give for it. Delay still continued.