388 INDIAN BARBARITIES. [Book II. Worn by dread and expectation, the widow and her daughters could snatch but a troubled sleep at best. From this they were awakened twice this night: once early, when it was found that the drum had given a false alarm. At four in the morning, the hoarse drum was again heard; and, deadly sick at heart, the ladies sprang from their beds. The younger sister (of sixteen) stole to a back window; and the elder looked into the street. She saw, by the torch-light, the soldiers part and fly; but her sister saw, in the uncertain glimmer of the dawn, something worse. An interminable number of painted savages were leaping the garden-fence leaping along the walks like kangaroos, flourishing their tomahawks for a blow upon the house-door. It was too late to fly. Before the front door could be opened, the back windows came crashing in, and the yelling savages seized the ladies. The captives put on the most submissive air possible. A woman on the opposite door-step lay tomahawked, from having defied the Indians. Some squaws drove these ladies through the streets, between burning houses, and among bleeding corpses, to the British encampment. The British commander could do nothing with helpless women in his camp; and he sent the ladies home, under the care of an ensign and a private, who had extreme difficulty in saving the women and their house. For two days, it was a constant struggle at the door; and at the end of that time, the house was almost the only one left standing. The flames were, in some places, actually slaked with blood. A few of the inhabitants barricaded themselves in the jail; others stole out to the woods, with their money, and whatever they could carry about them. When the Indians found nothing more to burn and destroy, they went elsewhere; and the inhabitants began to creep back to the town, shivering and half famished. The windows of the now lone house were carefully darkened, and a large fire kept up all the day and night — the ladies cooking for hungry applicants, as fast as food could be procured. When too weary to stand, they slept, one at a time, before the fire. The younger daughter gained nerve as time went on, and, making herself look like an Indian, with a blanket about her shoulders, went out into the wintry night, to forage for food. She traced the hogs in the snow, and caught many fowls in the dark. But the savages came again. They could not prevail on themselves to leave the house standing; and they burst in the windows, while six men from the woods were eating within. As the six men fled, the poor girl, who was cooking for them, naturally fled with them; but, recollecting herself, she looked back. A savage was coming on, with his kangaroo leap, and his raised tomahawk. In another moment, her skull would have been cleft. She burst into a laugh in his face, and held out both her hands. CHAP. VII.] AMERICAN NAVAL SUCCESS. 389 The savage was surprised and perplexed, and his weapon swerved. He motioned her homewards; but she could not obtain entrance. Persuaded that her mother and sister lay murdered within, she became reckless, and thrust her way through the Indians to some British dragoons, who were sitting on the ground a long way off. Amazed at her escape, they guarded her home, and protected her sister and mother, till the savages had finally departed. Then, the family had nothing left but the bare house over their heads neither furniture, food, nor clothes. But they earned their living by working for the towns-people, as they dropped back into the place; and the young creature, whose brain had not turned at the sight of the suspended tomahawk, became the wife of a judge. A true picture, like this, of the American war of 1812-14, will enable the next generation to understand how Americans must have felt from President Madison down to the humblest settler in the woods towards an antagonist who could bring into the conflict savages of too low an order to be under military command. land. By the aid of such allies, the British took Mackinaw; and General Hull, failing in his attempts upon Canada, British sucsurrendered the important fort of Detroit, with its cesses on guns, and 2500 men. On the sea, the Americans had the advantage greatly to the consternation of Eng- Losses at sea. land, whose naval supremacy had, for some years, been undisputed. The American frigates of a rating corresponding to the British were, in size, weight of metal, and manning, almost equal to our ships of the line. It was some time before our proud and fearless naval commanders became sufficiently aware of this; and, till they had learned caution, the Americans had all their own way at sea. In August, they took the English frigate Guerrier; 1 and, during the rest of the year, inflicted various other mortifications on our naval pride, besides enriching themselves by a successful course of privateering. The English people began to demand more energetic measures against a naval foe whom they could no longer despise; and, on the 26th of December, the Regent issued a public notice,2 that the ports and harbors of the Chesapeake and Delaware were in a state of blockade. 1 This blockade enabled the British to do some mischief on the rivers, and by excursions up the country, here and there; but, during 1813, the Americans had still the advantage at sea; and our force on the great lakes could not compete with theirs. As for the wisdom at head-quarters, under which the war was to be conducted, it was not likely to show itself more to our com1 Annual Register, 1812, p. 200. 2 Ibid. p. 204. 390 PROPOSALS OF PEACE. [Book II. manders in America than to Wellington in Spain; and one anecdote suffices to show what it was. When the British were to encounter the Americans on the great lakes, water-casks were sent out, at large cost of money and trouble, the officials at home having forgotten (if indeed they knew) that the lake-water was fresh. This was of a piece with sending out to Wellington shoes not only unfit for service among the Pyrenees, but too small for any soldiers to wear. of peace. On the 30th of March, just after Mr. Madison had resumed Extensive office on his reëlection as President, the Regent blockade. issued a second notice, 1 declaring a blockade of the ports and harbors of New York, Charleston, Port Royal, Savannah, and the mouth of the Mississippi. No decisive battles were fought during the year. The Americans failed in new attempts against Canada; and, on the other hand, the British lost their city of York (now Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, with 300 men and considerable stores. In May, the Russian in- Emperor of Russia offered his mediation between the tervention. belligerents. The American government, while bating nothing of its complaints of Great Britain, evidenced a desire for peace, by proposing to send three Commissioners to Europe, to negotiate a treaty, under the auspices of Russia.2 The British government declined the intervention of Russia; but expressed Proposals a desire for peace, and proposed to appoint Commissioners to meet those of the United States, if the meeting was held either in London or at Gottenburg. Meantime, the war went on. It was a disheartening fact to the British that a formidable portion of the foes they had now to meet were actually arrayed against them by their own government. In answer to the complaints of the American government of the impressment of their seamen by the British, Lord Castlereagh declared in parliament that not more than 1600 or 1700 Americans could be found in our navy; and Mr. Baring's reply testified that not less than 16,000 British sailors were serving Deserters in the navy of the United States. The long war, the severity of the impressment in England, and the unrelieved fatigues of the service, had so far destroyed national attachment in a multitude of British sailors, that they were eager to take service in a foreign state whose identity of language with our own made such a measure safe. A more important adverse influence was the exiled Irish, who might be found everywhere in the United States. The British Ambassador, just returned thence, declared in parliament,3 that "there were no fewer than six United Irishmen in the American Con2 Ibid. 1814, p. and exiles. 1 Annual Register, 1813, p. 179. 178. CHAP. VII.] IRISH IN AMERICA HATE ENGLAND. 391 gress, remarkable for their inveterate hostility to this country, for the war with which they had all voted." There were others from Ireland who were guiltless of all political offence, but more hostile to England than any native-born American. For one instance, there were the sons of a clergyman who was quietly said to have "lost his life in the rebellion of 1798." This clergyman, a man of learning, wit, and gay spirits, was a neighbor of Lord Londonderry, and a favorite guest at his table. He was charged, secretly, with having written one or more patriotic songs found among the soldiers. He was seized at his parsonage, dragged before a few officers, who scarcely pretended to offer the forms of a trial, even by martial law, and ordered him immediately to the gibbet. To his wife's entreaties for time to bring evidence, the answer was that the only favor they could grant her was to allow her to attend her husband to his death. She did so. He was immediately hanged in his own parish, with his wife at the foot of the gallows. One son was a growing youth; another was four years old. He could not think what was the matter with his mother that night. She sat all night beside the bed, on which lay something covered with a sheet. Her eyes were very wide open; and she sat, all those hours, with a deep red spot on each cheek, staring at the wall. The child dared not move, but sat on his stool in a corner, watching his mother. That boy followed his brother in saying that he would never belong to England. Their mother, surrounded by hungering children, encouraged them in this, and sent back, without message, the clothes and money which her great neighbors left at her door. The eldest son went immediately to America, and was an active citizen there, while Lord Castlereagh (whom his father had known so well) was conducting the American war. This young man, animated by his burning love of Ireland, of his mother, and of the memory of his father, used his fine faculties well, and became not only the wealthiest citizen of Louisiana, but Judge of the Supreme Court of that State, and one of the most important members of the Senate at Washington. In that position, he had more power, in any question between Great Britain and the United States, than any man out of the Cabinet could have on our side the water. He invited over the rest of the family as he became able to offer them a vocation and a home; and that family is only one specimen of a large class of haters of England (the England of the Pitts, Sidmouths, and Castlereaghs), who were planted down in all districts, and scattered through all the political councils of the United States, during the war of 1812. One of the most threatening inflictions of the war arose out of the presence of this class in America. In that country, it was 392 Retaliation about pris oners. EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS. [BOOK II. considered a matter of course that immigrants, coming to settle for life, should transfer their allegiance from their native to their adopted country; but in Europe, such a transfer was held to be impossible. Out of the determination of the British government to treat as traitors all prisoners of war found to be of British, Irish, or colonial origin, arose one of the most painful complications of this lamentable quarrel. The British commander in Canada declared,1 in the General Orders published on the 27th of October, 1813, that twenty-three prisoners of war had been sent to England as British subjects, to be dealt with in that capacity. The American general, Dearborn, was immediately instructed to put into close confinement twenty-three British soldiers, as hostages for the safety of those who were gone to England. This was followed up by the Prince Regent committing to close confinement forty-six American officers and non-commissioned officers, as hostages for the safety of his twenty-three soldiers. He intimated that double the number of executions should take place on the British side for any on the American; and that the villages, coasts, towns, cities, and settlements of every kind in the United States, should suffer from the extremest vengeance of his forces, in case of any retaliatory act of the Americans, when he was dealing with his own subjects. The year 1813 closed upon these menaces; and the two countries remained on the watch for a revival of the worst warfare of the darkest ages. Both governments, however, thought better of the matter, and the cruelty and scandal were avoided. In April, 1814, a convention for the exchange of prisoners was discussed between two commanders;2 and in July this convention was reconsidered by a party of officers, at the suggestion of the American government. The convention was agreed to; and the opportunity was taken of including among the exchangeable prisoners the twenty-three British soldiers and forty-six American officers who had been confined as hostages. Relinquished. The war did not become more popular as it proceeded. The citizens of the United States suffered in all directions, while they had not the animating principle which had supported them under their privations in the war of the last century. No decisive advantage was gained on either side, while the revenue was falling off, and public spirit oozing away. In March, 1814, the President found it necessary to propose the repeal of the embargo and non-importation acts, under which the commerce of the country Relaxation of commercial restrictions. had sunk into ruin. Just when the merchants were beginning to hope for a revival of trade from this relaxation, they were thrown back into discouragement 2 Ibid. 1814, p. 182. 1 Annual Register, 1813, p. 190. |