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Governor Samuel A. Foote.

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political opponents; so that, through his known inflexibility of purpose, that could not be turned by any amount of outside pressure or party drill, and his courteous manners, he truly, as a man, wielded a great influence. His mode of speaking was simple, and as in conversation. He never attempted a methodized discourse; but aiming directly at what he considered the essential thing, and developing but one idea at a time, he soon exhausted what he had to say, though it was generally found that he struck at the heart of the matter, and said the true and weighty word. It is related of him, however, that he fully appreciated the value of the ability to speak well in a free country, and encouraged his sons to train themselves in the art of public address.

Undoubtedly Andrew learned his first lesson of obedience -the prime word in a sailor's creed-at home; yet father and son were so much alike in stubbornness of will that Governor Foote once said that he thought he "had succeeded pretty well in controlling all his boys with the exception of Andrew-him alone he had only attempted to guide." Yet in both father and son there was, as has been said, a kindly, genial vein; and they were both what might be truly called popular men with all classes. Courtesy, indeed, was inculcated as a prime principle in the family life; and the example of Washington-the American gentleman as well as hero-was not as yet forgotten. This gentler side of the Puritan character and education is sometimes lost sight of. Doubtless there was too little of the spirit of indulgent sympathy with innocent enjoyment, and too intense a stress laid on obligation and not enough on love; but the Puritan family was by no means like a planet journeying on in perpetual eclipse. It rolled out sometimes into broad and pleasant sunshine upon Thanksgiving days, election days, and the holiday sports of childhood and youth, and whenever original Anglo-Saxon humor, good-nature, and cheerful piety fairly asserted them

selves. We have but to add, what has already been hinted, that Governor Foote, being himself a high-toned Christian man, reared his family in the strict principles of New England morality; religion, as the foundation of character, was laid at the bottom. Though it was not in Andrew's case the immediate cause of a religious life, who can tell what a profound influence this home piety, leading the mind coustantly to view the practical earnestness, and even solemnity of life-its obligations to God-had upon his whole future career?

In regard to the schoolmasters and school-days of Andrew Foote, a word might be said—and but a word-for his was a nature that did not easily take mould from without, but rather developed itself by a native force from within. He was not a man of thought so much as of action. The strength of his nature was on its moral side. What he purposed he thought; what he willed he did. His life is in his deeds. Silent in preparation, issuing from deep sources, his acts, like the acts of men of his kind, were rapid; their results are open to every eye, and the world does not care very much to know about the early shaping influences of a power which is noiselessly generated like electricity in the hidden springs of nature. In fact, his schools and schoolmasters did not probably have much to do in making the man. He drew his sagacity to plan, his courage to dare, his power to act, from his parents, and from the nature God gave him. His first school-upon entering which, it is said, he made a desperate but, in this sole instance, unsuccessful fight for freedom-was in New Haven, and was kept by Miss Betsey Bromham, afterward Mrs. Austen, who was permitted to visit the Admiral in his last sickness in New York, and then and there to express the life-long interest which she felt for her former child-pupil.

When the family removed to Cheshire, Andrew was sent first to the common or district school kept in that village, and

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afterward was placed at the Episcopal Academy of Cheshire, then in charge of an able and noted instructor, Dr. Tillotson Bronson.

It is not probable that young Foote distinguished himself as a scholar, for that was not his bent; but in these schools in Cheshire he became fitted to pass the examination then required to become a member of West Point Military Academy, the entering of which institution was a kind of compromise with his parents, since he had already declared his intention of going into the Navy, to which his mother was particularly opposed. We may, however, suppose that his school-years were not wholly lost time, as his literary attainments and productions in after-years gave good proof. He mastered the common English branches, and always wrote in a clear and flowing style. He said to a friend in the latter part of his life that he had never read a book through consecutively, but was accustomed to glean its contents by a rapid glancing over it, and that he had found this to be the method of some distinguished men. One of his schoolmates at the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire was Gideon Welles, recently Secretary of the Navy, who proved to be one of his warmest friends, and who, in the trying scenes of the war, gave the Admiral his generous and unfailing support. From the testimony of another schoolmate,* young Foote was noted while at the academy for his amiability and tact in getting out of the difficulties which his frolicsome disposition plunged him into; and even the stern old doctor, a stickler for discipline, was not able to resist his winningly frank, gentle, and affectionate

manners.

This healthy, bold, adventurous boy, we may imagine, was learning a great deal of human nature and of the world that God made in those school-days in the picturesque country vil

* George A. Jarvis, Esq., of Brooklyn, N. Y.

lage among the green Connecticut hills. He knew where the tallest hickory-trees grew, and the biggest chestnuts ripened:

"Knowledge never learned of schools,

Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild flower's time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude

Of the tenants of the wood;

How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,

And the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young;

How the oriole's nest is hung."

IIe fished in the trout-brooks, swam in every stream, and explored every cave; and, more than all, he explored his own heart, and found out what he was made for; for early in his Cheshire boyhood-life he stoutly declared his intention of going to sea, and said that if prevented, he should do so the moment he was twenty-one years old.

West Point proved a stepping-stone to his darling plan. He remained at the Military Academy of West Point but a few months-say from June to December-and in the latter part of the year 1822, at the age of sixteen, he was transferred to the Navy.

CHAPTER II.

FIRST CRUISES AND SEA-LIFE.

THE active temperament of young Foote, ready for any thing but still life on shore, had found its right direction. On the 4th of December, 1822, he was appointed acting midshipman, and was stationed on board the schooner Grampus, under Commander Gregory, in whose fleet, upon the coast of Africa, he afterward held his first separate command. The Grampus belonged to the elder Commodore David Porter's squadron, which was sent out in 1823 to break up the piratical nests among the West India Islands. He thus entered at once upon the arduous duties of his profession. He was thrust into the "rough and ready" school of the older naval service; not passing through a preparatory academic training on shore, which is a comparatively modern invention. His habits of promptness and discipline were learned in the schoolroom of old ocean, among hard-handed tars and the stern realities of sea-life. From the testimony of his commander, he was an eager learner in the duties belonging to his profession; and at whatever hour of the day or night Lieutenant Gregory was called on deck, there would be found Midshipman Footein Gregory's own words-" dogging his heels:" ready to aid in taking an observation, active in running aloft, and with his eye and hand always on the right rope. He was equally devoted to the study of books then used in the science of navigation; in fact, as he often said, his life's ambition was to make himself a perfect naval officer-it ran in the line of his profession. The following is an extract from a boyish letter, dated on board the United States schooner Grampus,

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