e not the
slightest effort to detract from the praise due to Perry, and, indeed,
paid the highest tribute to his skill and conduct. Nor did he give to
Elliott any prominence whatever.

He had committed, however, the unpardonable sin. He had refused (p. 211)
to attack Elliott. He had preferred to accept Perry's original account
of the battle, written within five days after it had taken place, to the
view he took of it not only five years later, but also after a bitter
personal quarrel had sprung up between him and his former second in
command. While Cooper had made no special mention of the latter, he had
spoken of him respectfully. There was a general feeling that Elliott
ought to have been attacked. He was a very unpopular man, and, perhaps,
deservedly so; while Perry was both a popular favorite and a popular
hero. The refusal of Cooper to join in the general denunciation brought
down upon him, not only those who honestly believed him in the wrong,
but the whole horde of his own personal enemies who knew little and
cared less about this particular subject. In the long list of
controversies which the student of literature is under the necessity of
examining, none seems so uncalled for and so discreditable to the
assailants as this. For it is to be borne in mind that the historian had
not made the slightest attempt to injure Perry in the popular
estimation, or to elevate the subordinate at the expense of the
commander. Yet assertions of this kind were constantly bandied about,
though it would not have taken five minutes reading of the work to have
shown their falsity. Cooper was frequently spoken of by the press as the
detractor of American fame and the slanderer of American character,
because he refused to say, on one-sided evidence, that an officer of the
United States navy had been willing to sacrifice his superior in a hotly
contested battle and imperil the result for the sake of ministering to
his own personal ambition, or of gratifying a feeling of personal (p. 212)
dislike and envy, of the existence of which at the time there was no proof.

Space here exists to notice only the elaborate attacks to which Cooper
himself felt constrained to reply. The first of these appeared in four
numbers of the "New York Commercial Advertiser" during June, 1839. The
articles were written by William A. Duer, who had lately been president
of Columbia College. They purported to be a review of the "Naval
History," but nothing w