Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[43] because it made so indelible an impression on my memory that it impelled me, when I was older, to investigate that scourge to such extent as I might, and this investigation had some effect upon my conduct of affairs in later life.

My father's services on the South American coast, under a commission from the head of a republic not then having fully achieved its independence, were of much the same kind that Paul Jones rendered for our Revolutionary fathers on the coast of Scotland under like circumstances. A few evil disposed persons, I have heard, have denounced my father's acts as piracy. The man has never lived who suggested that to me, and I never saw it in print but under the following circumstances:--

After I returned from New Orleans one M. M. Pomeroy, who had obtained the sobriquet of “Brick Pomeroy,” established a scurrilous newspaper in New York. In order to get a circulation, he placed before his office a miniature statue, supposed to be of myself, shouldering a spoon. This was to the delight, I doubt not, of the inhabitants of Mackerelville, whom I tamed when in New York. He afterwards made some such publication, I was told, in a pamphlet which I presume he had not the courage to send to me; nor did I ever take any notice of the matter, because I knew the motive of the man. His wife, who, I had been informed, was an estimable lady, had called upon me with grievous complaints of “Brick,” saying that he had entirely neglected her and left her after afflicting her with a terrible disease. I undertook proceedings for a divorce which led to an adjustment. I hope the good lady is alive for she can testify to the circumstance. I had also been counsel against him in another case in the Circuit Court of the United States for the southern district of New York. In this case Pomeroy was sued for grievous wrongs done to a young lady, as the court records will show. But as Pomeroy was found to be utterly penniless and worthless, it was useless to bring the case to trial. I do not know whether Brick is alive or not. I should be sorry to learn that he is dead, because I hope that he may have the pleasure of knowing that, in justice to him, I have preserved his memory to go down with my own as far as mine will go.

The death of my father in St. Kitts, and the irrecoverable loss of what he had there, left my mother in a state of comparative poverty.