Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.
Toast at dinner, Norfolk, Va., Apr. 1816. This wording is quoted in Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, Life of Stephen Decatur (1848). According to Respectfully Quoted, ed. Suzy Platt, "Niles' Weekly Register, published in Baltimore, Maryland, gave a slightly different version in its April 20, 1816, issue (p. 136). A number of the toasts at the dinner for Decatur were included, probably reprinted from a Virginia newspaper, and Decatur's appeared as 'Our country - In her intercourse with foreign nation