A History of the American People

Britain and grew in the telling. An Edinburgh newspaper doubled the ship's size, adding: To annoy an enemy attempting to board, it can discharge l00 gallons of boiling water a minute and, by mechanism, 300 cutlasses with the utmost regularity over her gunwales and work also an equal number of heavy iron pikes of great length, darting them from her sides with prodigious force.' The British were also developing new weapons. In 1803 Colonel Henry Shrapnel invented the hollow-cased shot orShrapnel Shell,' an anti-personnel weapon still in use. It was hoped to
combine it with the new chemical rockets developed by William Congreve, son of the man who
ran Britain's main arsenal at Woolwich. Whereas Fulton was known as Toots' because of the noises he made, Congreve wasSquibb.' He created the Congreve Rocket in 1808 and by 1812
had developed an advanced version with a 42-pound warhead and a range of 3,000 yards, nearly
2 miles. He had in mind a 400-pounder with a 10-mile range. By 1813, when stories of the
American attack on Canada and the burning of towns and villages reached Britain, there was
outrage and calls for revenge. Captain Charles Pasley, the leading British geostrategist, proposed
bombarding the American coastal towns. Robert Southey, the Poet Laureate, applauded the
scheme, especially if put into effect with the new giant Congreves. He wrote to Sir Walter Scott
that, if British peace proposals were not accepted, I would run down the [American] coast, and treat the great towns with an exhibition of rockets ... [until] they choose to put a stop to the illuminations by submission-or till Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore etc were laid in Ashes.' Southey's suggestion, coming from a man not normally bloodthirsty, reflected the exasperation of the British people with war. In the spring of 1814 Bonaparte's regime collapsed and fighting in Europe ceased. The American war seemed a hangover from the past, an anomaly. The British were obsessed by beating Bonaparte but took no interest in the transatlantic conflict. When Francis Jeffrey, the famous editor of the Edinburgh Review, was in Washington in January 1814 and called on Madison, the President asked him what the British thought about the war. Jeffrey was silent. Pressed to reply, he said:Half the people of England do not know there is a war with
America, and those who did had forgotten it.' But the British government were keen to tidy up
loose ends all over the world and, in particular, get the frontier of Canada agreed once and for
all, and a settlement in the West Indies. So they put out determined peace-feelers but, at the same
time, rushed across the Atlantic forces released by the end of the war in Europe, with the aim of
putting pressure on Madison.
In view of America's failure in Canada, Madison should have greeted the news of his French
ally's defeat as a spur to get the best peace settlement he could as fast as possible. But he was
dilatory and divided in himself, and his administration reflected this division. Monroe, his
Secretary of State, was all for peace and thought pursuit of the war madness. But Madison had
appointed General John Armstrong (1758-1843) his Secretary for War, with wide powers to
direct the field armies and Armstrong was keen on victory. He had been ADC to Horatio Alger
in the War of Independence, had political ambitions, and thought a ruthless policy might promote
them. Monroe thought him a potential Bonaparte.' Armstrong sent an order to General William
Harrison, the future President, with instructions to conciliate the Indians, turn them loose on the
Canadians, and convert the British settlements on the Thames River into `a desert.' He also gave
General McClure discretion to burn Newark. Madison commanded the Thames order to be
revoked, and he disavowed the burning of Newark. Terror was never officially White House
policy, and one colonel was court-martialled for a town-burning. Nevertheless, many settlers
were murdered and their houses torched. Bearing in mind that Britain was now free to retaliate,
with an enormous navy of ninety-nine battleships and countless smaller vessels, and with a large