EXPLOITS OF PRIVATEERS.

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had captured twenty-six war-ships, armed with 560 guns, while it had lost only seven ships, carrying 119 guns.

sometimes even attacking The privateers were usually carrying one long cannon to any point of the horizon,

But, if the highest honors of the war were thus won by our navy, the most serious injury materially to Great Britain was in the devastation of her commerce by American privateers. No less than two hundred and fifty of these sea guerrillas were afloat, and in the first year of the war they captured over three hundred merchant vessels, and overcoming the smaller class of war-ships. schooners armed with a few small guns, but mounted on a swivel so that it could be turned and familiarly known as Long Tom. Of course, the crews were influenced by greed as well as by patriotism. Privateering is a somewhat doubtful mode of warfare at the best; but international law permits it; and though it is hard to dissociate from it a certain odor, as of legalized piracy, it is legitimate to this day. And surely if it were ever justifiable it was at that time. As Jefferson said, there were then tens of thousands of seamen forced by war from their natural means of support and useless to their country in any other way, while by "licensing private armed vessels the whole naval force of the nation was truly brought to bear on the foe." The havoc wrought on British trade was widespread indeed; altogether between fifteen hundred and two thousand prizes were taken by the privateers. To compute the value of these prizes is impossible, but some idea may be gained from the single fact that one privateer, the "Yankee," in a cruise of less than two months captured five brigs and four schooners with cargoes valued at over half a million dollars. The men engaged in this form of warfare were bold to recklessness, and their exploits have furnished many a tale to American writers of romance.

The naval combats thus far mentioned were almost always of single vessels. For battles of fleets we must turn from the salt water to the fresh, from the ocean to the great lakes. The control of the waters of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and Lake Champlain was obviously of vast importance, in view of the continued land-fighting in the West and of the attempted invasion of Canada and the threatened counter-invasions. The British had the great advantage of being able to reach the lakes by the St. Lawrence, while our lake navies had to be constructed after the war began. One such little navy had been built at Presque Isle, now Erie, on Lake Erie. It comprised two brigs of twenty guns and several schooners and gunboats. It must be remembered that everything but the lumber needed for the vessels had to be brought through the forests by land from the eastern seaports, and the mere problem of transportation was a serious one. When finished, the fleet was put in command of Oliver Hazard Perry. Watching his time (and, it is said, taking advantage of the carelessness of the

British commander in going on shore to dinner one Sunday, when he should have been watching Perry's movements), the American commander drew his fleet over the bar which had protected it while in harbor from the onslaughts of the British fleet. To get the brigs over this bar was a work of time and great difficulty; an attack at that hour by the British would certainly have ended in the total destruction of the fleet. Once accomplished, Perry, in his flagship, the "Lawrence," headed a fleet of ten vessels, fifty-five guns, and four hundred men. Opposed to him was Captain Barclay with six ships, sixty-five guns, and also

about four hundred men.

The British for several weeks avoided the conflict, but in the end were cornered and forced to fight. It was at the beginning of this battle that Perry displayed the flag bearing Lawrence's famous dying words, "Don't give up the ship!" No less famous is his dispatch announcing the result in the words, "We have met the enemy and they are ours. The victory was indeed a complete and decisive one; all six of the enemy's ships were captured, and their loss was nearly double that of Perry's forces. The complete control of Lake Erie was assured; that of Lake Ontario had already been gained by Commodore Chauncey.

BATTLE OF THE THAMES.

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Perry's memorable victory opened the way for important land operations by General Harrison, who now marched from Detroit with the design of invading Canada. He engaged with Proctor's mingled body of British troops and Indians, and by the Battle of the Thames drove back the British from that part of Canada and restored matters to the position in which they stood before Hull's deplorable surrender of Detroit-and, indeed, of all Michigan-to the British. In this battle of the Thames the Indian chief, Tecumseh, fell, and about three hundred of the British and Indians were killed on the field. The hold of our enemies on the Indian tribes was greatly broken by this defeat. Previous to this the land campaigns had been marked by a succession of minor victories and defeats. In the West a force of Americans under General Winchester had been captured at the River Raisin; and there took place an atrocious massacre of large numbers of prisoners by the Indians, who were quite beyond restraint from their white allies. On the other hand, the Americans had captured the city of York, now Toronto, though at the cost of their leader, General Pike, who, with two hundred of his men, was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine. Fort George had also been captured by the Americans and an attack on Sackett's Harbor had been gallantly repulsed. Following the battle of the Thames, extensive operations of an aggressive kind had been planned looking toward the capture of Montreal and the invasion of Canada by way of Lakes Ontario and Champlain. Unhappily, jealousy between the American Generals Wilkinson and Hampton resulted in a lack of concert in their military operations, and the expedition was a complete fiasco.

One turns for consolation from the mortifying record of Wilkinson's expedition to the story of the continuous successes which had accompanied the naval operations of 1813. Captain Lawrence, in the "Hornet," won a complete victory over the English brig "Peacock;" our brig, the "Enterprise," captured the "Boxer," and other equally welcome victories were reported. One distinct defeat had marred the record-that of our fine brig, the "Chesapeake," commanded by Captain Lawrence, which had been captured after one of the most hard-fought contests of the war by the British brig, the "Shannon." Lawrence himself fell mortally wounded, exclaiming as he was carried away, "Tell the men not to give up the ship but fight her till she sinks." It was a paraphrase of this exclamation which Perry used as a rallying signal in the battle on Lake Erie. Despite his one defeat, Captain Lawrence's fame as a gallant seaman and highminded patriot was untarnished, and his death was more deplored throughout the country than was the loss of his ship.

In the latter part of the war England was enabled to send large reinforcements both to her army and navy engaged in the American campaigns. Events in Europe seemed in 1814 to insure peace for at least a time. Napoleon's power was broken; the Emperor himself was exiled at Elba; and Great Britain at last

had her hands free. But before the reinforcements reached this country, our army had won greater credit and had shown more military skill by far than were evinced in its earlier operations. Along the line of the Niagara River active

fighting had been going on. In the battle of Chippewa, the capture of Fort Erie, the engagement at Lundy's Lane, and the defense of Fort Erie the troops, under the command of Winfield Scott and General Brown, had held their own, and more, against superior forces, and had won from British officers the admission that they