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THE REAL AMERICA IN ROMANCE
Volume X
SUSTAINED HONOR
The Age of Liberty Established
By
JOHN R. MUSICK
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
FREELAND A. CARTER
1909
PREFACE.
Written history is generally too scholastic to interest the great massof readers. Dignified and formal, it deals mainly with great events, andoften imperfectly with these, because, not pausing to present clearimpression by the associations of individual life, it conveys a stiffand unnatural opinion of the past. Historians ignore the details whichgo to make up the grand sum total of history, and from the very besthistories one can get but a meagre idea of the life and times of thepeople of bygone ages. It is these minor details of past events whichlend to fiction its greatest charm, and attract the multitude, byappearing more like truth. Although untrue in the particularcombinations, scenes and plots delineated, yet well written fiction isdrawn from nature and experience, and these facts in life, as withchessmen, are only arranged in new but natural positions. History shouldinclude everything in the nature, character, customs and incidents, bothgeneral and individual, that contribute to originate what is peculiarin a people, or what causes their advancement or decline. So broad isits scope, that nothing is too mighty for its grasp--so searching,scarce anything is too minute. Were written history a clear transcriptof valuable incidents, it would be more enticing than the mostfascinating fiction.
It is the purpose of this volume to deal with some of the remote anddirect causes of the second war with England, by endeavoring, as nearlyas our ability will permit, to transport the reader back to the scenesof eighty or ninety years ago, and give views of the incidents whichclustered around the events of that time.
The war of 1812 has been properly termed by some historians the secondwar for independence; for, in truth, the independence of the UnitedStates of America was not established until after that event. GreatBritain across the ocean and the horde of Tories still in America hadnot abandoned all hope of yet making the United States a dependency ofthe country from which she had fought seven long years to free herself.The war of 1812 was never fought to a finish. In some respects it was adrawn fight. Its results were not satisfactory to the patrioticAmerican, and certainly were not to Great Britain. The contemptible"Peace Faction" continually crippled the administration all through thecontest of nearly three years.
After studying the patriotism of New England through the War of theRevolution, one is surprised at the unpatriotic actions of that sectionof the United States in 1812. One can hardly believe that it was partyfealty and political hatred of the democratic party alone which madethese formerly patriotic colonies and States hot-beds of sedition andtreason. It looks as if those States, having built up a flourishingtrade with Great Britain, cared little about the impressment of sailors,or the enslaving of their countrymen, so long as they filled their ownpockets. The men seized were usually poor, and their happiness, libertyand life were lightly regarded in comparison with the prosperity of the"Peace Party" merchant. If patriotism were dormant in the East, however,in the growing West, and the generous South it was strong. From thosesections came the hardy sons of liberty, who taught Johnny Bull anew torespect the rights of the common people. Though the treaty of peace wasnot satisfactory in many particulars, it more clearly defined the linesbetween the United States and British possessions in America, leavingthe fishery question and the right to search and impressment in anunsettled condition, giving the "Peace Party" an opportunity to say, "Itold you so."
An attempt is made in this story to cover the whole period of the warand the causes leading up to it, treating it from the standpoint of anindividual of the time. The pioneers of seventy-five years ago were ahardy race, long since disappeared. We hope that from Fernando Stevens,the hero of this volume, the reader may derive some idea of pioneer lifeas it then was. Fernando Stevens was a namesake of the cabin-boy ofChristopher Columbus on his first voyage to America, Hernando Estevan,of whom he was a lineal descendant. The hero of this volume was a son ofAlbert Stevens, a Revolutionary soldier, who was a son of Colonel NoahStevens, of the French and Indian War, who was a son of Elmer Stevens ofearly Virginia history, a son of Robert Stevens of the time of Bacon'sRebellion. He was a son of John Smith Stevens, of the early Virginiahistory, who was the son of Philip Stevens, or Philip Estevan, the youngSpaniard who was the personal friend of Captain John Smith and helpedlay the foundation of Jamestown. He was a son of Francisco Estevan ofSt. Augustine, who was a son of Christopher Estevan of Cuba, a companionof Pizarro and De Soto, and he was a son of Hernando Estevan, who wentas cabin-boy with Columbus on his memorable first voyage in which hediscovered the Western Hemisphere.
This scion of a long line of stalwart but not famous ancestors is theone whose adventures we now narrate. Like his ancestors, he was only oneof the rank and file of Americans, whose names are seldom seen in print,but who, after all, go to make up the true history of our gloriousrepublic. Fernando's adventures, with those of Morgianna, the mysteriouswaif of the sea, form the romance of this story.
JOHN E. MUSICK.
KIRKSVILLE, Mo., July 11th, 1893.