BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the fourteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five, and of the independence of the United States of America the fiftieth, ROBERT BEALE, of the said District, hath deposited in the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the District of Columbia, the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Author and Proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

"A Report of the Trial of Commodore David Porter, of the Navy of the United States, before a general court martial, held at Washington, in July, 1825. By Robert Beale, Attorney at Law. C'est le crime qui fuit la honte & non pas l'echafaud.-Corn. To which is added, a Review of the court's decision.”

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned," and also to the act, entitled "An act supplementary to an act, entitled An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned,' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and affixed the public seal of my office, the day and year aforesaid. EDM. I. LEE,

(L. S.)

Clerk of the District Court for the District of Columbia.

PREFACE.

The intrinsic importance of the case of Cam. Porter very early suggested the idea of a full and methodical report of it. As in the progress of the trial some interesting and novel questions of military and general law were discussed, the utility of such a report became more evident. These original considerations were enforced and confirmed by subsequent circumstances.

The publication in the newspapers of the final proceedings of the court, in which not only the judicial sentence upon the matter in issue, but sundry collateral remarks and censures, which were detached from the connecting and explanatory documents and circumstances, and published in advance, made a full and fair exposition of the whole matter necessary to a complete understanding of the new and before unthought of matters disclosed, both in the court's final sentence, and in the partial extracts from collateral proceedings and opinions. It was also understood that the judge advocate had published a pamphlet; which, though originally composed by way of answer to one published by Com. Porter before the trial, was stated to have embraced, by way of supplement, some strictures and notices of the proceedings before the court martial. The reporter speaks of the character and contents of this pamphlet at second hand only. All that was necessary to be known of it, for the present occasion, was to understand that it did animadvert, by way both of censure and of justification, upon transactions at the late trial before the court martial. The reporter was resolved that this report and all the comments upon the occurrences in the course of the trial, should be strictly confined to the matters appearing in the proceedings, and to the reflections suggested by them alone: without reference to any extraneous statements, or to any controversial topics treated elsewhere: leaving the public to judge of the differences, if any, between two independent statements; neither being written with a knowledge of, or in reference to, the other.

The reporter had constantly attended the trial; and taken notes of its progress; not only with a view to prepare himself for the report, but to assist in preparing the materials of the defence. In this way he had access to the official record or minutes of the court's proceedings,--from which he was enabled to take exact transcripts of the evidence as it was delivered, and of the intermediate decisions of the court--but all taken with a view to subsequent revision and comparison with the complete record, after it should be transmitted to the Department, and the publication of the final sentence should make it accessible: not doubting that it would be then accessible, according to all preceding usage. But he found, to his surprise, upon application to the