reputation of superior prowess which usually precedes and facilitates the progress of an invader. To retire without accomplishing an avowed purpose, is to dispel this charm, and relinquish a powerful auxiliary; and though, in doing so, some present husbanding of resources may doubtless be effected, the entailment of an accumulated loss on many subsequent occasions, will be a yet more inevitable consequence.

During these different occurrences, as we are informed, the perfect unanimity which prevailed between both branches of the service was most gratifying to observe. The navy, though unavoidably not so prominently brought into play as their comrades of the army, bore, as they always do, their full share in every toil and every danger; nor can any one present fail to recollect their truly generous and enthusiastic exertions. Thus, it is trusted, will it ever be for ours is an amphibious power, depending, in no ordinary sense, for its efficiency, permanence, and extension, on the undisturbed concert and zealous co-operation of these principal executive arms of the state.

We took occasion, a page or two back, to corroborate a statement, extracted from certain Historical Memoirs, lately published by a Mr. Relfe, and which we had very accidentally met with. Now, we think it quite indispensable to guard ourselves from being supposed to give the slightest assent to some other parts of that performance, reflecting, as they seem to us to do very seriously, on the professional characters of different individuals, whose names are incidentally mentioned in them. We particularly allude to certain passages which tend directly, and without disguise, to deny to the gallant soldier, whose fall there was such good reason to deplore, the credit of the principal action, performed by the troops under his orders. We have before us the MS. statements of gentlemen personally and intimately acquainted with every one of the material circumstances connected with this matter; but it may not be discreet, at present, or in this place, to enter upon such details: we shall, therefore, content ourselves with observing, that from whatever quarter the writer here noticed, en passant, may have derived his information, we are perfectly satisfied that such an unheard-of pretension, as that which he brings forward, neither did nor could have received the slightest countenance from the eminently-meritorious naval officer thus unjustly and invidiously eulogized, at the expense of a gallant brother in arms that is no more. But it is not, we persuade ourselves, in the power of any obscure detractor to tear the laurels from the tomb of one who paid for them so dear a forfeit, and to whose memory the decrees of his sovereign and of his country have awarded them.

VOL. XXXVII. NO. LXXIV.

2 L

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We have now to revert to the conduct pursued by the British troops whilst in possession of the city of Washington,—the propriety of which has been so violently questioned on both sides of the Atlantic; and the character of which has, we are quite sure, never been fairly investigated, or brought before the public, in its true light. On this subject our Subaltern, after describing with a faithful pen the terrific hurricane and wide-spreading conflagration which marked this brief period, hazards the following assertion :

Had the arm of vengeance been extended no further, (than to the destruction of a few public buildings,) there would not have been room given for so much as a whisper of disapprobation; but, unfor tunately, it did not stop here. A noble library, several printing offices, and all the national archives, were likewise committed to the flames, which though, no doubt, the property of government, might better have been spared.'

We are sorry that a writer, possessed of our author's sense and judgment, should have inconsiderately joined in such an outcry as this. He ought to have paused and reflected well ere he thus ventured to give additional currency to the disingenuous suppres sions and exaggerations of our enemy, and to echo the unscrupulous flourishes of republican rhetoric. No doubt, the destruction of a public library, (however inconsiderable,) however unconsciously it may have been done,-or of national archives of however recent origin, (if, indeed, the latter had any existence at all,) must ever, under any circumstances, be a subject of unfeigned regret. But to what did this invaluable library amount? It consisted of copies of the proceedings of legislative bodies whose commencement, as we all know, dates not very far back, and of all which duplicates were, doubtless, attainable with no difficulty. As for the monuments of the arts and models of taste, so vauntingly deplored at the time, it was a mere mockery, sent forth to catch the eye of the casual European reader.-It is well known that such things are not as yet of the growth of the New World, and that not one chef-d'œuvre of the arts, until Chantrey's statue of Washington went out in 1827, was ever seen within the whole precincts of the United States! Neither the government nor the people of those countries have money enough to throw away on such embellishments, even were they disposed or qualified to appreciate them; and accordingly whenever an American student in painting or sculpture finds himself likely to reach eminence, he is sure to settle on this side of the Atlantic. Were Jonathan at all a virtuoso, he would keep his Wests, Leslies, and Newtons to himself.

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To return to this conflagration at Washington,-it was, in reality, a measure of the cabinet and not of the camp: but even if this had been otherwise, we positively deny that the smallest portion of blame could have attached either to the troops or to their general. Let it be remembered that our army, after sustaining a long and toilsome march, and a sharp conflict, arrived in Washington during the night; that they were received, not by a deputation of civic authorities, anxious to preserve the capital of a great nation from injury, but by a useless discharge of musketry from the suburbs, directed against a flag of truce; that there remained not a single functionary, nor even a menial domestic, in charge of any one of those intellectual treasures, subsequently spoken of in such elaborate and high-sounding phrases; and that of the existence of any such treasures, as connected, at least, with the senate-house, our people were wholly and unavoidably ignorant. When, therefore, the torch was applied to that structure, not the most remote purpose was entertained of consuming books or written documents. These, though so very far from being of the value assigned to them, were involved in the demolition, purely by accident; and it is incorrect, in the highest degree, to attribute one particle of the mischief to a desire of extending too far the arm of vengeance.' Besides, were not the president and his officers mainly to blame, whose alarm for their own personal safety appears to have engrossed all their thoughts, to the utter forgetfulness of the ill-fated city and all that it contained, whether buildings, stores, archives, or inhabitants? We believe that there is but one other instance on record, at least in modern times, of a large town being deserted, on the approach of an enemy, by its government, without the precaution having been taken of deputing some authority, municipal or otherwise, to mediate with the victors. Nay, even America herself furnished, at this very time, an unanswerable proof of the efficacy and prudence of the course of conduct which it is customary to adopt on such occasions. On the day after our entrance into Washington, a deputation arrived from Alexandria, a similar one having proceeded to the officer commanding in the Potowmak, the object of both being to propose terms for the preservation of such of the public property in that city as was inapplicable to the purposes of war. The terms were immediately agreed to, and Alexandria escaped what (in consequence, in a great degree, of the culpable abandonment of their posts by the magistrates of Washington) befel the less fortunate capital.

Of these not unimportant accessories to the transaction under review, nothing was known in Europe-nor, indeed, was any

attempt at explanation made; and, accordingly, it became a theme of general reprobation, wherever the subject happened to be mentioned for the first impression on the public mind was effected by the protests of the republican ministers, who promptly and adroitly availed themselves of the opportunity this afforded of withdrawing attention from a catastrophe brought about by their own disgraceful improvidence, and of covering, at the same time, with obloquy, as far as in them lay, those who had been so instrumental to their discomfiture, and whom, therefore, under this pretext, they were but too glad to designate as the military vandals of Great Britain.' A first impression with the public, even more than with individuals, is difficult to obliterate. Their high-sounding though most uncandid statements were everywhere read with avidity; they remained unanswered, because those who could have answered them were otherwise employed; and, as not a word was dropped touching any previous provocation--or of their indifference to, or rather contemptuous reception of the remonstrances presented to them-as the very existence of all such circumstances was kept carefully and sedulously out of view,the whole transaction assumed an aspect widely different from that which the impartial justice of posterity will approve.

Even if the unintentional destruction alluded to had been really of the extent represented in these inflated accounts, and had been totally unpalliated by the circumstances we have already referred to, still there would have been no want of matter to be adduced, which, to say the least of it, must have gone very far, indeed, towards its justification. In the depth of the winter of 1813-14, the Americans made predatory incursions along the borders of Canada, plundering, and burning to the ground, York Town, Newark, Long Point, and St. David's. Not satisfied with this, they drove, in wanton and capricious cruelty, the inhabitants of at least one of these places from the very site of their former homes, reducing them to a state of misery of which no one, unacquainted with the rigours of a Canadian winter, can form any adequate conception. Men, women, and children, wandered through the snow, till numbers sank down and perished; whilst the few who made their way to other habitable spots, arrived in a condition more deplorable than the imagination is willing to pourtray. It is absurd to say that it was the duty of the colonial government to defend its subjects against such outrages. A thinly-settled frontier, of fifteen hundred miles in extent, could not be covered by any force which has ever yet been employed in those parts. And thence the whole population of Canada, which happens to lie along that line, was exposed to a repetition of these barbarities as often as it might suit the disposition of our opponents to inflict them. The

governor

governor-general was extremely unwilling to resort to the cruel expedient of reprisals, and referred the matter, with the utmost earnestness, to the cabinet of Washington. But his representations were met, on every occasion, by replies at once vague, evasive, and unsatisfactory. Reparation for the past, and indemnity for the future, were equally denied to him; and he was driven at last to adopt the only measure which held out any prospect of success. He laid the case before the admiral commanding on the station, and accompanied his statement with a request that measures of fully corresponding severity should be exercised towards any places which might fall into his hands. And it was in consequence of this appeal, and for the purpose of convincing our antagonists that a war of destruction would be to them not less injurious than to their enemies, that the public buildings of the capital were destroyed. It is true, that on the Canadian frontier an agreement had been entered into towards the latter end of July, that retaliatory measures should cease on both sides; but, of that agreement, neither Sir Alexander Cochrane nor General Ross were as yet aware.

But, say the Americans, the devastation perpetrated in the two cases bore no comparison in amount. Be it so; but is the principle at all affected by this consideration ?—The plunder of a cottage violates no less the laws of nations and of humanity, than the destruction of a palace; and it matters not one iota, as far as the rule of abstract right is concerned, whether the private dwellings in smaller towns, or the more costly fabrics of a capital, be given up to the fury of a licentious soldiery. This, in both cases, is an exercise of power against which every right-minded person will exclaim. But it is beyond a question, that to that party, whichsoever it may be, with whom the system had its commencement, the chief share, if not the whole of the blame, must attach. We have only to add that the work of demolition was begun by the enemy themselves, who set fire, with their own hands, to their shipping, bridges, arsenals, dockyards, and magazines, the whole of which were in flames and exploding long before the first of our detachments reached these points. One word further on this subject, and we have done. The president, in his message to congress immediately subsequent to this event, charges Great Britain generally, or her forces, with an avowed purpose of trampling on the usages of civilized warfare,' and of plunder and wanton destruction of private property.' It is true that some excesses had been committed in desultory affairs on the sea-board, by small parties belonging to another force, and at an antecedent period, sufficient to give a colouring of truth to these accusations; but the words were naturally supposed to refer

solely