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CHRONICLE.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF

CAPTAIN LEWIS WARRINGTON.

LEWIS WARRINGTON is a native of Virginia, which has been fruitful in distinguished men; and was partly educated at Williamsburg college, a seminary once famous as the residence of learning and science. The revolution, though in

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general, favourable to the institutions of learning in this country, from various causes, proved highly injurious to this ancient establishment, which gradually fell into decay. Its antique cloisters, and gothic ailes were deserted for more fashionable establishments, and Virginia, instead of educating her youth at home, was indebted for their acquirements, their manners, and their morality, to the seminaries of other states. Anxious for the honour of the native state of Washington, we would hail with pleasure every measure that promised to restore the once celebrated college of Williamsburg to its former usefulness, and would be gratified to see it placed on a footing with the power, the resources, and the reputation of Virginia.

At the age of about fifteen, young Warrington being appointed a midshipman in the United States' navy, joined the frigate Chesapeake then lying at Norfolk, in February 1800. In this ship he cruised on the West India station till May 1801, when she returned to the United States, and then went on board the frigate President under commodore Dale. This ship soon after sailed for the Mediterranean, where she remained until 1802 blockading Tripoli. The President, in May, 1802, returned to the United States, and Mr. Warrington then joined the frigate New York, in which ship he once more sailed for the Mediterranean, and returned in June 1803 to this country in the Chesapeake frigate. On his return, he was immediately ordered to the Vixen, then commanded by captain Smith, late of the Franklin seventy-four, who died lately in Philadelphia. In this vessel young Warrington again sailed for the Mediterranean in August 1803, and remained in her during the attacks on the gun-boats and batteries of Tripoli, in which the Vixen always took a part. In the month of November 1804 he was made acting lieutenant, and in July the next year went on board the brig Siren as junior lieutenant. In March 1806, he joined the Enterprise, as first lieutenant, and in July 1807 returned to the United States, after an absence of four years.

The gun-boat system was not then quite out of fashion, and on lieutenant Warrington's return to the United States, he was ordered to the command of a gun-boat on the Norfolk station, where commodore Decatur commanded at that time. It is difficult to conceive a situation more calculated to depress the spirits and mortify the pride of young officers, than the command of such a vessel as this. Independently of its precluding them from all opportunities of acquiring distinction or experience in their profession, it subjected them to all the hazards of idleness, placed them where they could never be out of the reach of actual contamination from those habits and manners, which, though custom has made us tolerate them in common sailors, destroy the reputation of officers and cover them with indelible disgrace. The pride of rank and command, the estimation of society, and all the strong supports of youthful character were taken away from the aspiring warrior, by thus placing him in a situation, where he was perpetually exposed to the ridicule of his countrymen, the contagion of gross manners, and forever placed beyond the hope of acquiring honourable distinction. It is well known to the senior officers of the service, that many fine youths lost themselves, irretrievably, and sunk under the disadvantages of their situation; and that so many of them should have surmounted it, is one among the many things they have done to entitle them to the applause of their country.

Perhaps these sentiments may be ascribed to party feelings, by those who cannot form even the abstract conception of a writer actuated on any occasion by a better motive. We have lately been accused on the one hand of displaying a hostile spirit towards England, and on the other, charged with a want of American feeling, in some of the preceding articles of the Naval Chronicle. We should be greatly surprised at the latter assertion, did it not come from a man, who having lately been relieved by the people of his native state, from the burthen of public duties, is now left to devour his own

heart in solitude and contempt, without any other solace than the miserable consolation of venting his spleen against one who, even in the zenith of his power, discovered, and proclaimed his imbecility. Be this as it may, we shall continue to express our opinions freely, because we give them with a full conviction of their truth; and boldly, because we have not the remotest fear, that we shall ever be capable of expressing a sentiment unworthy of Americans.

Lieutenant Warrington continued in the command of a gun-boat, until February 1809, when he was again ordered to the Siren as first lieutenant. On the return of this vessel from Europe, whither she went with despatches, he was ordered to the Essex, as her first lieutenant, in September the same year. In this ship he cruised on the American coast, and again carried out despatches for government, returning in August 1812. He was then ordered to the frigate Congress, as her first lieutenant, and sailed in her on the declaration of war, in company with the squadron under commodore Rodgers, intended to intercept the British West India fleet. The of this fleet was peculiarly fortunate to Great Britain, as commodore Rodgers passed and repassed them with his squadron repeatedly; but for thirteen or fourteen days, with very little intermission, the fog was so thick that his vessels could not distinguish each other at the distance of a quarter of a mile. Lieutenant Warrington continued in the Congress till March, 1813, when he became first of the frigate United States, where he remained till his promotion to the rank of master commandant, soon after which he took the command of the Peacock sloop of war.

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Hitherto we have done little more than specify the gradual steps by which captain Warrington rose to a situation in which he soon drew the attention and merited the gratitude of his country, by an action which placed him in the rank of her favourite heroes. It will be observed that his promotion took place slowly and at regular intervals, step by step, as his experience increased, and his qualities gradually developed them

selves. He rose from rank to rank, from a smaller to a larger ship, and from the various stations he has occupied, as well as the various grades of vessels he served in, it would seem that no officer of his age in the service, has had better opportunities of acquiring a consummate knowledge of his profession than captain Warrington. That he has profited by his experi ence is evident from his conduct in the action with the Epervier, as well as in his subsequent cruise in the straits of Sunda, and especially from the testimony of his seniors, who uniformly bear testimony to his talents and professional skill.

While cruising in the Peacock in latitude 27°, 47, he had the good fortune to fall in with the British brig of war Epervier with whom he engaged. The result of the action is thus communicated in his official letter to the secretary of the

navy:

"SIR,

"At sea, April 29th, 1814.

"I have the honour to inform you that we have this morning captured, after an action of forty-two minutes, his Britannic majesty's brig Epervier, rating and mounting eighteen thirty-two-pound carronades, with one hundred and twenty-eight men, of whom eleven were killed, and fifteen wounded, according to the best information we could obtain-among the latter is her first lieutenant, who has lost an arm, and received a severe splinter-wound in the hip. Not a man in the Peacok was killed, and only two wounded, neither dangerously. The fate of the Epervier would have been decided in much less time, but for the circumstance of our fore-yard having been totally disabled by two round-shot in the starboard-quarter from her first broadside, which entirely deprived us of the use of our fore-topsails, and compelled us to keep the ship large throughout the remainder of the action.

"This, with a few topmast and topgallant backstays cut away, and a few shot through our sails, is the only injury the Peacock has sustained. Not a round-shot touched our hull, and our masts and spars are as sound as ever. When

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