rsy about the "Naval
History" that more than anything else embittered Cooper's feelings. He
had striven hard to write a full and trustworthy account of the
achievements of his country upon the sea. Because he had refused to
pervert what he deemed the truth to the gratification of private spite,
he had been assailed with a malignity that had hardly stopped short of
any species of misrepresentation. Rarely has devotion to the right met
with a worse return. The reward of untiring industry, of patriotic zeal,
and of conscientious examination of evidence, was little else than
calumny and abuse. He felt so keenly the treatment he had received that
he regretted having ever written the "Naval History" at all. In (p. 233)
a published letter of the early part of 1843 he expressed himself on
the matter in words that come clearly from the depths of a wounded
spirit. "Were the manuscript of what has been printed," he wrote, "now
lying before me unpublished, I certainly should throw it into the fire
as an act of prudence to myself and of justice to my children." In his
triumphant reply to Burges, Duer, and Mackenzie, while he showed the
haughty disdain he felt for the popular clamor which had condemned him
without knowledge, he did not seek to hide the bitterness it had caused.
"This controversy," he said, "was not of my seeking; for years have I
rested under the imputations that these persons have brought against me,
and I now strike a blow in behalf of truth, not from any deference to a
public opinion that in my opinion has not honesty enough to feel much
interest in the exposure of duplicity and artifice, but that my children
may point to the facts with just pride that they had a father who dared
to stem popular prejudice in order to write truth."

It is in these last lines that Cooper unconsciously revealed the
strength which enabled him to go through this roar of hostile criticism
and calumny without having his whole nature soured. One great resource
he possessed, and its influence cannot be overestimated. In the closest
and dearest relations of life with which happiness is connected far more
intimately than with the most prosperous series of outward events, he
was supremely fortunate. In his own home his lot was favored beyond that
of most men. However violent the storm without, there he could always
find peace and trust and affection. The regard, indeed, felt for him by
the female members of his family, may justly be termed