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and harbor on the entire Atlantic coast, together with the mouth of the Mississippi were blockaded by cordons of British vessels. Admiral Cockburn, who commanded off the southern coast, burned and sacked the towns and committed many unnecessary deeds of cruelty; while Commodore Hardy, who commanded in New England waters, abstained from all such barbarous practices and proved himself a generous foe and a high-minded gentleman.

In

One of the last of the American vessels to yield was the plucky Essex, commanded by Captain Porter. After her victory over the Alert, as noted above, she made a wonderful cruise in The Essex. the Pacific Ocean, capturing many British whalers. December, 1814, we find the Essex blockaded by two English ships, the Phoebe and the Cherub, in the harbor at Valparaiso. At length she was attacked by both in disregard of the neutrality of the port, and the battle that ensued was one of the most dreadful in naval history. The odds against Porter were too great, the Essex was almost shot to pieces and took fire, after three fourths of her 255 men had been killed or wounded. The battle had been witnessed from shore by thousands of people who had gathered on the heights to view the magnificent spectacle. Among Farragut. the crew of the captured Essex was a boy of thirteen years, whose name was yet to be placed in the first rank of naval heroes. Other naval battles we must leave unmentioned and give a brief notice to the merchant marine.

David G.

The victories of our war ships could do little toward destroying the powerful British navy; it was the moral prestige that they gave the United States that made them important. But it was far otherwise with the inroads of our privateers on the commerce of England. The loss inflicted upon British shipping during the two and one half years of war was incalculable. Congress licensed about 250 ships, and these scoured every sea in search of the defenseless merchantman, and the prizes they took numbered many hundred. Many of the privateers plowed the seas for months in vain; others were extremely fortunate. The True-blooded Yankee took a town on the coast of Scotland, burned seven vessels in the harbor, and captured twenty-seven vessels in thirty-seven days. The Surprise made twenty prizes in a month. The Leo captured an East Indiaman worth two and a half million

1 It has been estimated that sixteen hundred British merchantmen fell victims to the privateers and the war ships. Many of these were recaptured by British vessels before reaching port.

dollars, but it was recaptured. No English merchantman was safe in the Irish Sea or the English Channel. One American captain issued a burlesque proclamation, declaring the entire coasts of England and Ireland in a state of blockade. The merchandise taken reached many millions in value, and represented the industries of every clime and every seaport on the globe,-sable furs from the Siberian desert, silks and tea from China and Japan, ivory from Africa, Turkish carpets, silks, wines, gold, and diamonds - all kinds of merchandise carried in English vessels became a prey to these bold, · insatiable rovers of the sea, the American privateers.

There has been much recent criticism of privateering. The assertion that it is legalized robbery is true; but war itself is worse than robbery. Why should property, especially that which has a military value, be held more sacred than human life? How could a nation without a navy cope at all with a great maritime power except through privateering? Is it less humane to destroy an enemy's property than to destroy the lives of his men? Abolish privateering? Yes, by all means; but abolish war at the same time, and let the nations settle their disputes by arbitration. Had not privateering been permitted in the war we are treating, the English could have disposed of our little navy and then harassed our coasts for indefinite years until we came to their terms of peace. It is certain that Great Britain would not have been ready to come to peace when she did but for the fearful wounds she was receiving through the privateers.

27, 1813.

FURTHER OPERATIONS ON THE LAKES

We left General Dearborn on the southern shore of Lake Ontario in the vicinity of Sacketts Harbor, where Commodore Surrender of Chauncey had built a fleet of fourteen vessels. The York, April monotony of the winter was broken by sporadic raids; but in the spring of 1813 Dearborn planned to capture Toronto (then called York), the capital of Upper Canada. For this purpose he sent General Zebulon M. Pike, the explorer. After a rough voyage in Chauncey's fleet, the troops landed near the town, and were met by an equal number of British and Indians led by Sheaffe. After some hours of sharp fighting the Americans captured the town, when suddenly the ground was shaken by a terrific explosion. The magazine containing five hundred barrels of powder had exploded, and the falling débris killed nearly a hundred men

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and wounded twice as many. Among the mortally wounded was General Pike, who was struck by the fragment of a stone wall while sitting on a stump talking with a captured British sergeant. British claimed that the explosion was an accident, and the fact that nearly half the killed were their own men, seems to justify the claim. It is impossible to believe that they would have engaged in such wanton destruction of life after having surrendered the town. The British flag was hauled down, and General Pike died with it folded beneath his head.

Soon after this, Dearborn sent General Boyd, who had succeeded Pike, to capture Fort George. Boyd succeeded after several sharp skirmishes, and over six hundred of the enemy were made prisoners.

At the same time Sir George Prevost, governor general of Canada, sailed from Kingston in a fleet of nine vessels bearing a thousand men for an attack on Sacketts Harbor. But Prevost was wanting in military skill, and he soon withdrew his ships and returned to Canada.

May, 1813.

General Dearborn was relieved of his command in June, 1813, and General Wilkinson was called from New Orleans to take com

mand. John Armstrong, author of the famous New- Chrystler's burg addresses, had become secretary of war instead of Field, NovemEustis, and he planned another invasion of Canada, ber 11, 1813. with Montreal as the objective point. In the autumn, Wilkinson moved from Sacketts Harbor down the St. Lawrence with an army of seven thousand men, while an additional force under Wade Hampton was to coöperate in moving on the Canadian city. But these old generals were jealous of each other, and Hampton refused to serve under Wilkinson. The latter moved on, passed Ogdensburg, and when within ninety miles of Montreal met a British army and was defeated in the battle of Chrystler's Field. Hearing now that he would not be supported by Hampton, Wilkinson abandoned the expedition. Meantime the British in the Niagara region had rallied and recaptured Fort George. But the Americans, before leaving, had wantonly burned the village of Newark, and the British in retaliation crossed over and burned half a dozen towns, including Buffalo, then a village of fifteen hundred inhabitants.

We now come to the most famous American victory in the lake region during the war. Lake Erie was held by a small English fleet commanded by Commodore Barclay, who had fought with Nelson at Trafalgar. The Americans determined to dispute the control

of its waters, and Oliver Hazard Perry, a valiant young naval officer, sought and obtained permission to undertake the task. The undertaking was prodigious. The timber of the coming fleet was still standing in the woods; the iron works, stores, canvas, and cordage were in New York and Philadelphia, and there was no railroad or canal by which to transport them. So during the winter scores of sleds and wagons struggled through the deep snows of northern Pennsylvania, bearing the necessary equipment; while over fifty ship carpenters at Presque Isle, now Erie, were busy hewing out the timbers. The work was protected by an excellent harbor inclosed by a bar over which the British could not sail. But Barclay would remedy the evil; he would attack the new-born fleet while crossing the bar, and he watched and waited. Perry's work progressed rapidly. He named his flagship Lawrence, after the brave commander whose dying words, "Don't give up the ship," now became the motto of the vessel that bore his name. end of July the fleet was finished, and fortune favored it from the beginning. The vigilant Barclay lost his vigilance for a day. He accepted an invitation from a rich Canadian to a Sunday August 5. dinner, and took his fleet to the northern shore. On that day Perry's fleet crossed the bar. It was a difficult feat. The larger vessels were lightened and borne up by scows, and after a day and a night of severe toil they were launched on the bosom of the lake, and there they stood defiantly when Barclay returned. next morning. The British commander now seemed to have lost his desire to fight, and he wheeled about and fled westward. It took Perry a month to find him; but he did so at Put-in-Bay about sunrise. of September 10, and before sunset of that same day Great Britain was without ships or sailors on Lake Erie.

By the

The two fleets were of nearly the same force. Perry had ten vessels with fifty-five guns, and Barclay six vessels with sixty-five Battle of Lake guns. Each had about four hundred men. The battle Erie, Septem- opened at noon, and for some hours there was an inber 10, 1813. cessant roar of artillery. Several of the English vessels directed their fire upon the American flagship, and by two o'clock over two thirds of her hundred and thirty men were killed or wounded. At length the Lawrence seemed about to sink, and the undaunted Perry, waving his banner, passed in an open boat in the face of the enemy's fire to his next largest vessel, the Niagara. Presently two of the British vessels fouled, and the Americans,

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taking advantage of this, raked their decks with a murderous fire; but only for twenty minutes, when the British fleet raised the white. flag and surrendered.

Perry's laconic dispatch to General Harrison, "We have met the enemy and they are ours," soon became as famous as the noble words of Lawrence, which he had made his motto. This brilliant victory transferred the control of the lake wholly to the Americans, rendered the recovery of Michigan comparatively easy, and gave to the young American commander an undying fame.

The Raisin

Before the battle of Lake Erie the land forces of both belligerents had been gathering in northwestern Ohio. The British and Indians were there under Colonel Henry Proctor and Tecumseh, the Americans under General Harrison, of Tippecanoe massacre. fame. The fall of Detroit had roused the blood of the young men of the West, and they determined to wipe out the dishonor. Early in the year 1813, General James Winchester was moving through western Ohio with a thousand Kentucky troops, and before the close of January he reached Frenchtown on the river Raisin, eighteen miles from Malden. Here he met Proctor with a large body of British and Indians, and a battle was fought in which the Americans were defeated, and many of them taken prisoners. Then occurred one of those scenes of carnage so common to Indian warfare. Many of the Americans while retreating were ambushed and tomahawked; others were butchered in cold blood after they had surrendered. Next day Proctor started back to Malden with his prisoners, among whom was Winchester, and left thirty wounded Americans at Frenchtown. But ere they had gone far, two hundred Indians turned back and massacred the wounded men and set fire to the buildings. "Remember the river Raisin " became the rallying cry of their surviving comrades in the Northwest. The American loss in this affair was about four hundred killed or wounded, and over five hundred captured.

After this disaster, Harrison with twelve hundred men built Fort Meigs at the rapids of the Maumee. Proctor besieged this fort in vain for some time, and then turned his attention to Fort Stephenson. This fort stood on the site of the present city of Fremont, in northern Ohio, and was held by a hundred and sixty men, commanded by Major George Croghan, a nephew of General George Rogers Clark, whom we have met in the Revolution. Proctor's demand for a surrender of the fort, with the usual threat of Indian massacre, was answered by