Some time after you had been suspended from the service, for your conduct in the affair of the Chesapeake, you proceeded, in a merchant brig, from Norfolk to Pernambuco; and by a communication from the late Captain Lewis, whose honor and veracity were never yet questioned, it appears--that you stated to Mr. Lyon, the _British consul_ at Pernambuco, with whom you lived, "That if the Chesapeake had been prepared for action, you would not have resisted the attack of the Leopard; assigning, as a reason, that you knew, (as did also our government,) there were deserters on board your ship; that the President of the United States knew there were deserters on board, and of the intention of the British to take them; and that the President caused you to go out in a defenceless state, for the express purpose of having your ship attacked and disgraced, and thus attain his favorite object of involving the United States in a war with Great Britain." For confirmation of this information, Captain Lewis refers to Mr. Thomas Goodwin, of Baltimore, the brother of Captain Ridgely of the Navy, who received it from Mr. Lyon himself. Reference was made to Mr. Goodwin, who, in an official communication, confirmed all that Captain Lewis had said. The veracity and respectability of Mr. Goodwin are also beyond question. You will be enabled to judge of the impression made upon Captain Lewis' mind, by the following strong remarks he made on the subject: "I am now convinced that Barron is a traitor, for I can call by no other name a man who would talk in this way to an Englishman, and an Englishman in office." These communications are now in the archives of the Navy Department. If, sir, the affair of the Chesapeake excited the indignant feelings of the nation towards Great Britain; and was, as every one admits, one of the principal causes which produced the late war, did it not behove you to take an active part in the war, for your own sake?--Patriotism out of the question! But, sir, instead of finding you in the foremost ranks, on an occasion which so emphatically demanded your best exertions, it is said, and is credited, that you were, after the commencement of the war, to be found in the command of a vessel sailing under _British license_! Though urged, by your _friends_, to avail yourself of some one of the opportunities which were every day occurring in privateers, or other fast sailing merchant vessels, sailing from France, and other places, to return to your country during the war; it is not known that you manifested a disposition to do so, excepting in the single instance by the _cartel_ John Adams, in which vessel, you must have known, you could not be permitted to return, without violating her character as a cartel.