of sheer cowardice, and although Van Rensselaer was four times wounded, his personal bravery availed nothing. Six hundred of his men were forced to surrender to the British, who captured also three hundred skulkers and cowards on the outskirts. Van Renssalaer escaped, and sent in his resignation, which was accepted by his superior, Dearborn, who denounced him to the secretary of war as an ignorant militia officer who was jealous of the regulars. Then a regular was put in command, General Alexander Smyth, who immediately issued a high-sounding, boastful proclamation telling what he intended to do, closing with the war cry, "The cannon lost at Detroit or death." The story is a sad one. A new army was gathered, an expedition was planned. The impatient soldiers were making good progress and success seemed certain, when, to the astonishment of all, the general declared the plan abandoned. Furious with rage the soldiers forced him to a second attack, and again the order came to give up the movement. Then the general asked leave to visit his family in Virginia, and sneaked away through unfrequented ways, not however until he had fought a duel with his inferior in command, who branded him as a coward. The seconds in the duel were careful, however, to withdraw the bullets from the pistols, so that no one was hurt. Such was the character of the fighting around Niagara. During the war there were a number of engagements in the vicinity, in one of which York, now Toronto, was captured and its public buildings burnt in an unauthorized manner. In another during July, 1814, at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane the American troops drove the British from the field and came near winning a victory, but they were unable to hold the ground gained and so technically lost credit for a victory. Some have claimed Lundy's Lane to be the only land victory won by Americans during the war. The movement in the center thus failed as hopelessly as that in the west, and there was no success in the Champlain country either. The plan to acquire Canada through war was a dismal failure.

Now the tide turned. The British began to encroach upon the dominion of Massachusetts in Maine. Islands were seized and the main land threatened. The northeastern boundary was an unsettled one, the dispute holding over from the Revolu

Vol. 9-3

tion. It was not finally settled until the Webster-Ashburton treaty of 1842. The war afforded England a good chance to seize some of the disputed country and make good the mistake of her representatives in 1782, when they outlined a boundary with the United States which cut them off from the eastern possessions and made New Brunswick less accessible to Quebec. Late in the autumn of 1814 five thousand men landed on the shores of Chesapeake bay and started for Washington. There was tremendous confusion, mismanagement, stupidity, cowardice, and general incapacity. Six thousand men were gathered to meet and resist the enemy, General Winder being in command. They made their stand at Bladensburg within sight of the capital. Almost at sight of the red-coats, the soldiers turned and ran, taking part in what was facetiously called the Bladensburg races. The British took Washington on August 24, 1814, destroyed the public buildings in revenge for the act against York, and then shortly moved on Baltimore. It was during the defence of this city that Francis Scott Key had the inspiration which resulted in the Star Spangled Banner. The close of the campaign of 1814 showed the condition of the United States deplorable indeed. The capitol had been taken and burned. Many of the public archives had been destroyed. The army was demoralized. The antagonism to the war was increasingly active. Everyone was ready to hear that the envoys already in Europe considering peace had been successful in securing it without dishonor. The war had been a conspicuous failure, so far as the movements of the army were concerned. The war for conquest had become a war for preservation of what we already owned. Fortunate it was for us that the English people, too, were tired of war and were ready for peace with us.

But the war was not without glory, for the navy towards which some eyes had been hopefully directed, startled the world by its achievements and kept up the drooping spirits of those Americans who lost heart because of the disasters on land. Congress had not been generous to the navy. There were more officers than ships for them to command, and more eager sailors and marines than there were ships to hold them. The wonderfully animating spectacle was witnessed of men taking

turns in making sea trips, those left behind more eager if possible than the fortunate ones permitted to go. There were four good fights with the British on the sea in 1812, in all of which the Americans won the victory. On August 19th the Constitution, under Captain Isaac Hull, a relative of the general who figured in the disaster at Detroit, three days before, captured the British frigate Guerriere after a two hours' fight off the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On October 18th the Wasp captured the British vessel Frolic, both being taken soon by a British seventy four pounder and carried into Bermuda. On October 25th the United States under Captain Decatur compelled the commander of the British Macedonian to strike his colors, and on December 29th the Constitution, now under Captain Bainbridge, destroyed the British Java, thus giving Old Ironsides the credit of two victories within five months and ending a year of triumph on the ocean. For the flag of England had never been taken in humiliation from a British frigate since the days of John Paul Jones. Now the idea that England was invincible upon the ocean was gone forever, and a neutral nation had asserted its own rights there. Our privateers, too, had been active, over three hundred prizes having been taken during 1812. These naval victories did more to establish our prestige than anything in our history. No one knew or cared about the geography or the conditions of the small land engagements. These naval victories stirred the world. In 1813 there were four important naval duels in which honors were even, each side getting two victories. But one of the American victories was a specially notable one. On June 1st Lawrence had been killed in the fight between the Chesapeake and the Shannon, his dying words, "Don't give up the ship", being taken as a motto by Oliver Hazard Perry who undertook to create a fleet for the control of Lake Erie. He captured a British brig, bought such American boats as he could, and then built five more vessels out of green timber cut from the shores of the lake. On September 10 he attacked the British squadron and after a hard fight, during which he changed his flagship, crossing from one vessel to another in the midst of a fierce fire, he compelled its surrender, this being the first time in England's history that a whole fleet had been surrender