 Good evening. I'm Bill Dickinson. I am a member of the Alexandria War of 1812 Bicentennial Planning Committee, and we've been working on a series of events for probably the last year and a half. Gretchen Bolova has been our organizer, our driver, let's put it that way. Peter Pennington has been a member of the team. You see Mark Wadford from Carl Ahlhaus. There's been quite a number of people there, and I better not get into naming them all because I'm going to forget some. This is the last of our Alexandria War of 1812 Bicentennial Lectures. We've had quite a number of lectures with the Alexandria Historic Society and co-sponsored with the Office of Historic Alexandria. Tonight, we're privileged to be here. Thank you to the Masonic Temple for making this glorious space available. And also to the law firm, which is sponsoring this event tonight, of Maguire Woods. And I thank very much Jonathan Rack, one of their attorneys for making this happen. And it's so appropriate, I think, that he, that this firm be the sponsor since if they were around in 1814, 1815, I suspect they would have been involved in doing the work on coming up with the Treaty of Ghent. They have offices in London. They have offices in Brussels. They have offices in Richmond and in Washington. So just a different time. Tonight, I'm very honored to present to you Andrew Lambert, Professor Andrew Lambert of King's College, London. He is the Lawton Professor of Naval History and he will be our keynote speaker as he has been for the last two days at a symposium involving many scholars on the War of 1812 at Decatur House, an event that some of you were already attended that was sponsored by the White House Historical Association, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, and Monperior, James Madison's Monperior. It was a mind-boggling, wonderful experience, very elegantly done, and I think we all learned much. Professor Lambert is the author of the highly acclaimed book Nelson Britannia's God of War, that was in 2004, and more recently this book, which it was hard to find, but I did read it, The Challenge. Britain's, Britain Against America and the Naval War of 1812, and this one, the Anderson Medal in the U.K. for the best naval book of 2014. Dr. Lambert also wrote and presented BBC's television series, War at Sea, so you may have seen him before. He's now writing a biography of Captain Napier Captain of the 36-gun frigate Uralis, one of the frigates which joined Captain James Anderson Gordon's ship, The Seahorse, accompanied by a number of other ships that ascended the Potomac River in 1814 in a pincer movement that was supposed to have Washington in the center. Things got off, he'll get into the story a little bit, but the timing got off a little bit, so that naval squadron arrived here shortly after the British withdrew their forces from Washington, D.C. Captain Napier would become one of the most popular and visionary British admirals in the Victorian era, and he made some interesting observations about his stay here in Alexandra. I should point out that prior to the war, prior to the declaration of war against Britain in 1812, Alexandra's economy was booming, and it was primarily because of the export of flour and grain to the West Indies and also to Europe to support Britain's armies. We were a federalist city, and we were in a state. We were also part of the District of Columbia, and that should be remembered. But in an ironic way, we were feeding the British Army, and I'm sure Dr. Lambert will get into that. So with that, I am going to turn you over to Dr. Lambert, and I think you're going to find his look at Alexandra and how it sat in the world, how it sat in this country, and how it took its place as far as the global economics of the day. Very interesting. So Dr. Lambert. Thank you very much, Bill, for that splendid introduction. I have been in this town once before to get a look at the land to draft the paper I'm going to give this evening, which is not in the book. The book covers many things, but it covers this, I think, in less than a page, because I always intended that this chapter would be in the biography of Charles Napier, which is coming along quite nicely, but not yet finished. I don't want to talk about the War of 1812. I want to talk about the War of 1814, because everything changes in 1814. In April, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated. The greatest war that Europe had seen in 300 years came to an end very dramatically, very suddenly, almost before anybody was ready for the war to end. This grand war had finished, and there is the German view of Napoleon going from Emperor of the World to Emperor of Elba, which is the kind of island you have in the middle of the river out here. It's really not very big. Many Americans, particularly in the administration, who were rather fearing that they'd get some of what their own medicine, expected a full-scale British invasion of the United States. The British would send their victorious army from the Spanish Peninsula, led by the unconquered General Duke of Wellington, and they would come over here and do something they hadn't been able to do in 1812 or 1813. But the British were actually far too busy rebuilding Europe. As far as they were concerned, this was a small war. It was a sideshow. It was caused by the Napoleonic Wars, and they had to get Europe put back together again as soon as possible because their national debt had ballooned, and they needed to rebuild a European state system to allow them to trade their way out of deficit. This may sound a little familiar to us today. So they looked at sending 20,000 troops, and then they worked out they didn't have enough troopships, they didn't have enough troops, they needed to keep control of Ireland, and above all, they needed to keep the rest of the Europeans in line so they could secure their real war aims, which were the preservation of their maritime belligerent rights, the very things the Americans have been complaining about. They sent neither a large army nor a significant increase in naval force. Instead, a small force of British troops, around 4,000, were sent to join the fleet that was already operating very successfully in the Chesapeake Bay under Admiral Sir George Coburn. He was reinforced by Major General Robert Ross, a very successful junior commander from the Peninsula War. A similar number of troops were sent up into Canada to bolster the front and to launch a pre-emptive strike on Champlain to block any American advance. Most of these British troops had not fought under Wellington in the Peninsula. They'd actually been part of the Mediterranean garrison, but they were long-service hardened professional regulars. And they were escorted across the Atlantic by a small force of British frigates that came out to reinforce the blockade. This is Lord Castle Ray's map of the War of 1812. It tells you what the British think is important, and what is important is not America. We're up put back together again. The frigate Uriolus, you will see here. This is the aftermath of the Battle of Trafalgar. That's Lord Collingwood's flagship, the Royal Sovereign, and Uriolus is towing her into Gibraltar after the Titanic battle that settled the fate of the world in October 1805. When she arrived in North America, Uriolus was commanded by Captain Charles Napier, seen here slightly later in life. It was only 28 at the time he arrived on the Potomac. This is Napier in his early 40s. By now, he has decorations from several countries. A lot of those are Portuguese. He solved their political crisis for them in the 1830s. Napier was already an outstanding exponent of amphibious warfare. He'd been at war at sea since 1796 when he joined the Navy as a boy. He'd seen continuous service with a one-year break and a brief piece of amion. And he'd risen to command through acts of unparallel brilliance and daring. I'll only mention one of them because I think it's relevant to look at this man's operational track record and his style. Small Island of Ponza, which is just off the coast of Naples. It was a forward observation post for the Neapolitan government and held off the British blockade of Naples. In the summer of 1813, Napier took a detachment of British troops on board his ship. HMS Thames, he joined up with another ship, HMS Furiers, and they waded off the island for perfect wind and weather conditions, and they then sailed in and they parked their frigates right alongside the mole, having made a 90-degree turn in a very difficult navigation. They disembarked the troops so quickly they took the battery before it could fire a second round, and they then chased the garrison all the way up to the hill to the watch post at the top and captured that at the point of a bayonet without a single fatal casualty. This was an astonishing feat of arms, and everybody in Britain knew that this was an exceptional officer. It wasn't his first brilliant deed, but it was, I think, a straw in the wind for what was going to happen here. This man knew his business, he was very good, he was very smart. He'd been a keen student of the war in America. He was very engaged with what the British Navy had had to go through, the problems they'd had dealing with privateers, and particularly with the American frigates. He'd studied Captain Sir Philip Brooks' ideas on ship discipline, ship command, gunnery, so he ran his ship like Philip Broke had run the Shannon, the ship that took the Chesapeake in only 11 minutes. This was a well-ordered ship, it was ready for battle. Napier and his squadron reached Bermuda on the 29th of July, 1814. Most people here think the war was over. He's getting here very late, and he comes under the command of Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochran, who had been his commander-in-chief earlier in his career. Cochran, a man who really didn't like Americans, they'd shot his brother's head off at the Battle of Yorktown, and he had a bit of a grudge. Cochran had seen two of Napier's most brilliant exploits, the ones that got him made a captain back in 1807, and he knew exactly what he was getting when Napier rejoined the flag. This was an outstanding officer with a tremendous track record. They arrived in the Chesapeake Bay on August 11th. Napier exchanged signals with HMS Seahorse, commanded by Captain James Alexander Gordon. There is the Chesapeake, I think you are all rather more familiar with this than I am, and there, of course, is the bit we're going to talk about tonight. Here's James Alexander Gordon, often thought to be the model for Horatio Hornblower. Certainly that's been argued quite recently. A convoy of transports were then coming to Anker in company with Admiral Coburn. The British were assembling an amphibious strike force on the Chesapeake, and they were going to attack somewhere in Maryland or Virginia, or both, and Washington was wide open to the sea. Afternoon on the 14th, Napier sent his small boat out to sound ahead as the Eurylus led a squadron towards the Potomac with St. Mary's lighthouse to the west. When you get down the Chesapeake course the river is enormous, and yet it's still quite shallow. He came into contact with Admiral Sir George Coburn's flagship, HMS Albion, which had just been up the Potomac's scouting for what was going to happen, and Coburn is the presiding genius of this operation, not just the attack on Washington, but also the naval attack up the Potomac. This is all he's doing. Here we are in the presence of one of Nelson's greatest protégés, a man so brilliant that when he finished doing this, they sent him to deal with Napoleon and take him to St. Helena. On the 16th they were sounding again when the troop convoy came in sight. These guys have crossed the Atlantic. They've stocked at Bermuda, but they haven't got off the ships. They've just picked up a bit of food and water. They've trudged their way up into the Chesapeake. It's now pretty hot and sweaty. These guys have been cramped in a ship. They've not had any exercise, and they're going to launch an attack with guys who've been on a big transatlantic sailing ship voyage. They've lost a bit of condition, and this will be an issue. Coburn had planned the whole thing. He'd got it all sorted. He'd done his work. He'd broken up the Maryland militia. He'd planned the attack. They would go up the Patuxent, and they would cross country if they got half a chance, all the way to D.C. They were not going to stop. When he arrived, Admiral Cochran found Coburn in position with a plan. The troops arrived, and it was necessary to rub out Commodore Barney's gunboat flotilla on the Patuxent. So that was point number one. Then they would follow on if the local resistance was weak. So, early on the 17th, the whole fleet upped anchor and sailed for the Patuxent. But shortly after they did, the signal flew from the flagship, the Tonant, Napier, Gordon, and their squadron peeled off and headed up into the Potomac River. It was a critical part of George Coburn's strategy. It was a diversion to draw American forces away from the Washington attack. It was also a way of pincering the movement, but it was also opening up a second retreat. If the British Army gets to D.C. and big forces come down from Maryland and the north, they can take a river road home. So this was a lifeboat maybe for a raiding army. Because 4,000 men conquering D.C., that's not a lot of troops. The British had no possibility of holding the ground. They can only raid and depart. So Cochrane is putting Plan B in place with this operation. And this is a serious operation of war. Two frigates, two standard fifth-rate frigates, but he needs more offensive assets. This, of course, is the George Coburn celebrating what he always considered the high watermark of his career. And you know of what I speak. In addition to the two frigates, they also sent all of the Navy, all of the squadron's bomb vessels. Now a bomb vessel is an unusual craft. It's a bombardment platform, mounting a 13-inch and a 10-inch muzzle-loading mortar, firing heavy exploding shell. And these things were the key to power projection against strong positions on shore. They were ordered up the Potomac to bombard Fort Washington or Fort Warburton, depending on which one you like to call it, 10 or 12 miles below the city, with a view to destroying that fort and opening a free communication above, as well as to cover the retreat of the Army should its return by the Bladensburg Road be found to hazardous. Those are Admiral Alexander Cochrane's orders. So they have a mission. They have to get up there, get past the fort, and open the way home. James Alexander Gordon, like Napier a Scotsman, with a very long track record of outstanding action, he'd lost his leg in a frigate battle. He'd fought in a very famous frigate battle in 1811 off the Ajax Island of Lissa, where Nelson's great prodigy Sir William Host trounced a French and Venetian squadron. And these two men were expert coastal warriors. They knew about operating on the shore, in shore, on land. They were amphibious as well as open ocean. The other vessels of the squadron were the bomb vessels, devastation, etnia and meteor. The British always called their bomb vessels after terrible things. Each armed with two mortars and the fire ship sloop Erebus, which was armed with congrieved rockets. So this is a new development, a rocket firing warship. There was also a small sloop to carry messages up and down. The bomb vessels and the mortar vessel were armed with light cannon for their own defense. So they could defend themselves, but their main offensive armament was different. The mortar is the key weapon in this story. They could fire a 13 inch shell out to 4,000 yards, way beyond cannon range. Bombs were around, carried around 200 of these shells and 140 incendiary carcasses designed to set fire to wooden buildings. And their critical weapon turned out to be not the big mortars, but they carried 5,000 one-pound shot, bit smaller than your fist, designed to be fired 200 at a time as an anti-personnel weapon. This was really good for getting the infantry out of the way. Not very nice one-pound shot. 240 barrels of gunpowder to send all of this on its way. The rocket vessel was a real novel. Here's a bomb vessel. The bombs are behind these covers. The ship would have been fully rigged as built. They're very heavy, stout vessel designed to absorb the recoil of these very powerful weapons. The mortar weighs about 13 tons. That's a solid cast iron lump. And here is the Erebus firing rockets. It looks like she's blowing up, but in fact she's just launching a rocket or two. And many of these weapons will be fired during this operation. So the key target is the fort. If they can get past the fort, everything else should open up. But this is not an easy task. The fort is on high ground. It should be well armed. It should be defended. On the first day they sailed into the Potomac. They had charts that Coburn had made that took them right up to the cattle bottoms, but only right up to the cattle bottoms. No British ship had been through the cattle bottom shoals because Coburn deliberately lured the Americans into the suspicion that the British couldn't get past them. He deliberately went there and turned around. He made it look like it was just not possible for big British warships to get up there. And of course the American Navy never sailed fully equipped warships up to Washington Navy. They all stripped them of stores, got them very light to get them over the shoals and it took a long time to do it. So this was not something that the Americans had anticipated. Once they got to the cattle bottoms, they constantly ran aground, as you might expect. These are deep-draught frigates and bomb vessels. They don't have a chart and of course the shoals move. Very difficult operation of war. How do they get through the shoals? They row the anchor in a rowboat ahead. They drop the anchor and they run around the capstone and literally physically haul the ship through the shoals. With the crew of 300, some brawny sailor lads, they got through but it was very heavy work. Required several extra tots of rum to propel them. The Royal Navy works well on a full belly and an ample tot. On the 21st, as they're doing this, they have to fire shot and shell into the woods alongside the river because if the Americans had been smart they'd have put marksmen in the woods alongside the river and fired on the guys in the boats. Because you can't row an open boat with people firing at you from the banks. This wasn't done. But the British were worried about this new American invention, the torpedo. Not the modern torpedo. Of course just an underwater explosive device invented by Robert Fulton and used in several occasions up on the New England coast as you can see from this British cartoon. The British were not overly impressed. A lot of sound and fury but not a great deal of success. Jack Tarr is saying, blow up my hull indeed. You may kiss my taffrail Mr Yankee Doodle. He's turning the other cheek as they say in that Christian gesture. So familiar from the Bible. So if the Americans had a chance to block that attack but they didn't, they didn't get any light guns down there. They didn't get enough manpower down there to try and break up that movement because they really hadn't anticipated it. As late as the 24th the squadron was warping up and then they quickly made sail. As soon as the wind comes up in the right direction they get the boats back in. They get the sails down and they sail as far as they can and that becomes very much the pattern. On the 16th there were Virginia militia in the woods commanded by General John P. Hungerford. They'd been tracking the squadron but they just didn't have the firepower to do anything about it. When the British saw them they opened fire on them to drive them away from the river bank to keep them moving. On the 7th day inside the Potomac the squadron could see in the distance the grim red glare that marked the destruction of the public buildings of Washington. As you know Coburn had cornered the American gunboats. He destroyed them. The British army had then marched across country defeated the Americans at Bladensburg and left their calling card. One of the speakers at today's lecture reminded us that more damage was under Washington D.C. by the United States Navy than by the British. The British burned about half a dozen public buildings. The American Navy burned the entire Washington Navy yard which was a much bigger complex and several warships. So the score on that one was at least 5% of Washington was destroyed by each side. But the big burn was not the White House which is a stone building. It was the Navy yard which was full of wood, timber, warships, cordage and inflammable stuff. That was the fire you could see from down here on the Potomac. So the operation had failed. They hadn't reached D.C. in time to provide this alternative way home for the main British army. They'd warped from dawn till dusk. The crews literally hauling the ships through the mud and they'd still not managed to do it. Two of the best captains in the Royal Navy. The next day, Napier landed under a flag of truce to visit the nearest farm on the river. The owner and his, and he quote, homely daughters. I'm not sure what homely means but I don't think it's a compliment. He was truly troubled by the presence of British ships, happily regaling the Britishers with a glass of local peach brandy which I bet took the roof off their heads. The American concluded his guests would not get beyond Maryland Point because the river was too shoal. And his only concern was to preserve his valuable slaves from the depredations of the British who had been told to come to steal them. Of course they hadn't. Napier learned nothing useful about the navigation but he did understand that the locals really weren't very interested in fighting. As far as Mr. Farmer was concerned he kept his personal possessions. He was quite happy. By the 22nd, Navy Secretary William Jones in Washington knew that Gordon's squadron had passed the cattle bottoms but he still didn't know what it was going to do or whether there was another army force onboard that ship. What was going to happen? Where were they going? It was uncertain. Anxious to reinforce for Washington Jones earned General Winder, the highly unsuccessful General at Bladensburg to release the sailors and marines Winder nervous that his force was far too weak to face any British forces without the sailors the only people who fought well at Bladensburg has to be said, refused. So the fort was left as it was. On the same day a deputation from Alexandria attended Admiral Coburn in Washington and attempted to surrender. This was very wise but Coburn who had no men's despair to occupy the town waved them away. He, you know, be off with you. I can't take your surrender because I can't come over to your town. He'd taken a town, he didn't need any more. On the 25th squadron wade anchor and began to warp up Maryland reach around one o'clock everything went very badly wrong as the Urales' lock records I quote, before the ship came head to wind and the sails rolled up the squall came on so furious prevented the sails being handed and sprung the mismast brought up by both anchors and got sails furled. That's on James Alexander Gordon's ship. Napier also noticed the sky suddenly darkened and he knew enough of the local climate to anticipate the storm. He had the Togallant's mainsail jib and spank had taken in but he'd underestimated the elemental fury of what was going to happen. A tremendous squall burst in the area driving a wall of water into the Urales and knocking overboard large parts of her rigging. The bowspit being relieved it had been blown out of place, but broke completely through. So he'd lost all three of his top masts he'd lost the bowsprit he'd lost other key parts of his rigging the ship was effectively dismastered and a wreck. This tight, well-organized frigate had been reduced to an immobile wreck by a single piece of natural intervention. Napier unbelievably calm under all circumstances throughout his life a disaster with his accustomed quickness of mind and common sense. With the squall now hurtling further down the river he sent his men to dinner because he knew they'd been working all day and they'd worked better on a full stomach with a tod of rum. They weren't in danger of sinking they just left it, they just left the whole thing a wreck went to dinner and after dinner they set to with a will. He reported to Gordon who thought they'd have to go back because the Urales could not be repaired that he would be ready when the last of the bomb vessels came to the position where he was anchored and he was as good as his word. They got the ship re-rigged and ready to sail just as the last bomb vessel came up he was absolutely spot on. Just before dawn on the 26th they got up the top mast got the old bow spread overboard and chopped up jury bow spread in a position and rigged by dinner time the Urales were ready to proceed and she proceeded exactly as Napier had promised. As it was a flat calm Napier had his Royal Marines out on the ship's boat towing and they moved another four miles up the river while the ship's sailors finished tightening down the rigging. So the Marines were pulling because Marines don't know much about rigging and the sailors were getting the rigging in order. It was a brilliant piece of response. A disaster had occurred he'd met it and he'd overcome it. On the 27th there was a fair wind which must have been a great relief because everybody was beat by then and working up for two hours the squadron anchored around seven o'clock in the morning and sounded the channel at Indian Head before sailing past. Around five in the afternoon Napier could see Mount Vernon in a commanding position on the Virginia shore at a point where the river narrows and like any good British liberal he had the ship's band play Washington's March in honour of the General who taught the British a great deal about democracy and politics. Had he been a Tory like Coburn at the place but you were very lucky he was a liberal otherwise you'd have one less local landmark. Royal Navy was very divided politically although they were all on the same team when it came to fighting the enemy. Shortly after that the prospect of Fort Washington opened ahead of them and they could see that it occupied a commanding position on elevated ground. Indeed Washington himself had picked out the location and said if well supported it was of Europe to pass the place. A small star shaped earthwork and a river level battery had been built to deal with an enemy coming up river if hostile ships could pass the fort it would be defenceless. It needed some support it needed some block ships, some gun boats it needed some troops it needed to be well held but it was a very strong position if held. It could have been truly formidable but that day Captain Samuel Dyson had a garrison of 49 men he'd only arrived in the fort a week before and his calls for additional heavy guns and more troops had been completely ignored by the government in Washington well not in Washington they were sort of wandering around not being in Washington because Washington was not a good place to be. Captain Dyson had asked General Wendor for patrols he'd asked for information he'd asked for all kinds of things and he'd received nothing. Nobody had told him anything. He thought that Ross's army was coming through the back door the Royal Navy was coming up through the front door and he didn't really think this was a good place for him and his 49 men to be so he wasn't probably in the right state of mind to fight a furious rearguard action. Judging they had the firepower to subdue the fort Gordon and Napier moved closer and anchored around 6.30 in the evening a little below the fort just as the sun was about to set Gordon positioned the bomb vessels just beyond gun range so they could bomb out the fort his next plan was to move the frigates into attack the fort while a powerful landing force went around the back and stormed the position from the back this was standard Mediterranean fleet drill this is how you take a defended battery in the Mediterranean and it would have worked perfectly well they then fired a ranging shot from one of the mortar vessels the bomb was accurate, it landed in the fort shortly afterwards the sailing master John Davis of the Uralis reported at about 7.15 the fort blew up Gordon could see the garrison abandoning their position and marching in land and then a massive explosion destroyed the fort I quote, leaving the capital of America and the populous town of Alexandria opened to the squadron without the loss of a man Dyson had panicked he had no information, he had no knowledge he faced a powerful enemy who seemed determined to attack and he decided not to try the experiment of defending the position he took his men and left he blew up the fort and he crossed the river and he carried on until he was four miles north of Washington he didn't stop anywhere until he was well out of harm's way the lack of information I think is critical the sounds of gunfire and the thunderous explosion of the fort and the magazine were heard in Washington where Commodore Thomas Tengier was trying to restore some kind of order to the devastated Navy Yard and it obviously seemed the Brits were coming back for round two everybody else was a bit worried as well poor old Dyson he probably did the best thing he could under the circumstances but the administration needed a scapegoat so he was court-martialed and cashiered for destroying government property Thomas Tengier who'd burnt the whole Navy Yard wasn't but he had orders from a superior so that was okay but the destruction of Fort Washington and here's a 1937 view which I think really gives you the point it's not very wide there you're on high ground the gun battery I think is down here at the time it's a tremendous position and if well held and properly fortified but it wasn't at first light on the 28th the squadron shifted anchor to a position close under the fort they sent landing parties to complete what the Americans had started mostly by knocking the trunnions off the cannon and chucking them in the river so they couldn't be used on the way back nobody wants to be fired on by the same set of guns twice one man deserted he was a swede he decided to become an American took them two hours to do that the Americans of course had plenty of men in the area they just didn't have any command and control to bring them into the right position to do the right thing everybody was running around really like a headless chicken the only people who knew what they were doing were the two Scots captains and they had a very clear idea of what they were about they were going to make a lot of money never underestimate the enthusiasm of Scottish officers for a bit of swag the problem facing Alexandria was quite serious the Alexandria militia had been called out and they were wandering around somewhere in Maryland because General Winter hadn't told them what to do either they weren't at Bladensburg but they weren't in Alexandria either and Winter had even commandeered the town's own bought and paid for a pair of 12 pounders so there were no guns, no troops nothing in effect the delay of passing the kettle bottoms reversed Coburn's original plan instead of Napier and Gordon opening the way for the army the army had opened the way for Napier and Gordon so the whole thing had now turned on its head this was now the main attack because the other attack had finished while the threat of American bayonets halted the slide into panic in Washington and persuaded the good men of Georgetown not to follow Alexandria's example and surrender bayonets would not recover command of the river and having burnt the bridge they weren't going to get any troops across the river very quickly either so here's the waterfront of Alexandria that's the only one I can find I suspect you've all seen this one but I might have to give this lecture to people who have not been to Alexandria so I thought I'd better show them what it looks like in the aftermath of the explosion the mayor of Alexandria Charles Sims and other civic worthies went down the river to negotiate with James Gordon well they just went down to surrender actually because they didn't have a negotiating position Gordon refused to take their surrender because he couldn't see the town and he issued them a stern warning not to resist and he sent his men behind them to buoy the channel so they could get up that bit quicker he was only going to summon the town to surrender when he had them under his guns quite literally he was going to park on the waterfront get his gun ports up and run the guns out and say now what are your terms at 9pm they anchored for the night two miles below Alexandria and they could already see several vessels dismantled basically most of the ship captains had stripped their ships out and scuttled them because they thought the British would just sort of leave them there they'd underestimated the Scotsman again the city, as Bill told you earlier had done very well out of the relationship between the Federalists and the British but the war had been very bad for business it was not possible to get stuff out of the Chesapeake from 1813 onwards so heavy cargoes of tobacco and grain and flour just not moving so things were clogging up here this was becoming a place full of stuff empty of money and proceeds at 4am on the 29th the squadron began warping up to the town again hauling on the anchors they set sail at 10.40pm and they anchored off the wharves shortly after noon James Gordon made the burgers of Alexandria an offer they simply could not refuse they were 200 yards off the waterfront broadsides directed in return for an undertaking not to make a nuisance of themselves that is the good burgers the British promised not to damage private property or molesty inhabitants that's exactly what you want if you're the mayor these guys are going to be in the town but they're not going to do any damage they're nice enemies in return the town would deliver up all naval and military stores all ships including those recently scuttled in the river which would be weighed up by the locals and all of their cargoes would be reloaded again by the locals the British would pay in cash for any food and they took delivery of several hundred pounds of beef while they were here in fact they left their last consignment on the jetty as they left but they paid in good government British bonds so it was good business having been British in town a lot of hungry sailors and I bet the bars did a roaring trade there's nothing like a bar for a thirsty sailor I think a lot of people in Alexandria probably quite liked having 600 thirsty Brits in town and of course the council having surrendered needed to cover with the guys back in Washington so they explained it was force majeure they'd been left defenseless, there's no troops there's no guns, the British had arrived what could they do the forts erected for the defence of the district have been blown up by our own men and abandoned without resistance in the town of Alexandria having been left without troops or any means of defence against hostile forces now within sight we surrendered that's a quote that's exactly the point they're making because that's not in their best interest they just want the water stop and the business to resume because business is good and to make sure nobody interfered with this treaty they sent the news off to General Wender who was still nominally in command of the 10th district and Generals Robert Young Commander of the Alexandria Militia and John P. Hungerford of the Virginia Militia requesting strict adherence to the agreed terms basically don't come in town and cause any problems we don't want a battle in the town that's the last thing we want the whole transaction was remarkably civilised very rich target after the destruction of Washington it was by far the richest target in the area so very attractive and the locals stood to lose their homes their fortunes, everything so cooperate it will be far less painful and of course the people of Alexandria had seen Washington captured and destroyed quite literally so why would they resist if the national capital can't be defended there's no hope for them both sides adhered to the terms of the settlement pretty much to the letter the British did agree that they would haul the ships up that have been sunk because the locals seemed rather squeamish about doing this and the British were much better at it anyway they spent three days weighing up sunken ships, refitting them loading them from the riverside warehouses while Royal Marines patrolled the streets they also bought 2,000 pounds of fresh beef and the whole thing very tight operation Mayor Charles Sims reported I quote it is impossible that men could have behaved better than the British behaved while the town was in their power there's an endorsement the Royal Navy the best behaved visitors you've ever had in town by contrast in Richmond the Republican leaning inquirer I quote thank God that this degraded town no longer forms part of the state of Virginia of course being part of DC allowed them to shuffle off that plane September 1st the Republican editorial the National Inquirer lamented and I quote the degrading terms dictated by the commander of the British squadron to the civil authority of that town connected with the offer of the townsmen before the squadron even reached a fort to surrender without resistance and their singular mission to Admiral Coburn while he was in this city have excited everywhere astonishment and indignation no only in Republican America not in Federalist America where nobody thought that was any serious problem indignation is cheap the Americans had no power so all it could be was indignant the British didn't even notice but they were reading the newspapers and the Americans published everything there was no discretion everything was in the newspapers the good stuff the bad stuff the secret stuff any stuff and the great thing about fighting the Americans is they write in some kind of English so it's it's really easy to understand after 20 years fighting the French you write in some strange other language this was really really simple stuff your intel officer needed no language skills you could even talk to the locals one to one it was very very easy at the force of Virginia militia approached the town and the council urged them to respect the treaty and the commanding officers then received fresh orders from Washington to camp on the high ground outside the town which I think is probably about here so the Virginia militia were up here watching but they didn't go down town they didn't go down King Street and join the Brits in the pub the British gathered as well as the war the American government 8 miles away desperately trying to recover some shreds of credibility and they decided that defeating the tiny British force and stopping it getting back down the river here's the 1860s and there of course is King Street and there up on the hill is that's where we are I guess so defeating the British and stopping them getting out that would restore credibility that made the government look big and strong and so secretary of the navy sends Captain John Ord Creighton to consult Commodore John Rogers the senior officer of the US Navy on the best method of preventing the British from retreating Rogers ride on the British cupidity avarice greed for they'd hang around a while filling their holes and really getting the plunder to make some money so he would build batteries he would have furnaces for red hot shot dangerous stuff that problem is British control the river and the gun you need to stop a British frigate going down the river is a 32 pounder and it weighs 6 tons you cannot move that on a dirt road you need water transport you don't control the river it's only 2 pounders anywhere near the river anyway so Rogers problem is he can see the solution but he doesn't have the assets to apply it certainly not in the short term Jones was determined to destroy the invaders and he ordered Rogers to bring 650 picked men from nearby Baltimore and prepare to attack the British with boats David Dixon David Porter turned up as well washed Jones sent him to the White House on the west bank of the Potomac to place a battery of 18 pounders and a furnace being picked by James Monroe now the acting secretary for war and Rogers he suggested should re-occupy Fort Washington while Captain Oliver Hazard Perry set up another battery across the river to set up a crossfire the British were going to be caught in a vice all America's naval heroes would be there with a lot of naval personnel they would stop the British the army hopeless navy they could do it easy the local press was already celebrating the victory bit like they did when the Chesapeake siloed to fight the Shannon that kind of pre-battle victory celebration slightly embarrassing in the event it is impossible declared one exultant newspaper that the ships can pass such formidable batteries as ours commanded by our naval heroes and man by our invincible seamen we'll teach them how to draw up terms of capitulation on the 30th of August John Davis observed several guns to be fired at the guard boat up the river while camps of troops could be seen on the north side of the river and behind the town even so the British just carried on they were loading the prizes and the sailors as well as the officers could count the value of the swag as it went into the ships the sweated labour of British sailors was in their own interest because the prize money would be divvied up they'd all get a cut and if they took enough stuff they would get to be very rich and those two Scotsmen weren't going to leave empty handed they were going to do the full thing Gordon was ready to send some of his prizes down the river escorted by the bomb vessel Meteor but early on the first Meteor signaled to Gordon that HMS Ferry was coming up the river she might have been called a fairy but she's quite well armed of warship Cochrane's orders of the 27th were to return the operation against Washington was over and he had other plans which if you live in Baltimore you'll be familiar with there was no need for Gordon to wait for the army they'd gone home and it was probably high time he left because now the Americans had only one target concentrate on and local newspapers confirmed that this was about to happen Cochrane had not expected his subordinates to turn this diversion into a major operation of war but of course they had Baker the captain of the ferry reported that troops and batteries were assembling it would be no picnic going home but at least they'd have the current behind them and they knew the river rather better on the first as a party from Uralis were attempting to heave up a half sunken ship the British had their first intimation of trouble John Davis the master of the ship noted I quote a party of the enemies cavalry came into town in truth they were not cavalry there were only three of them and they were naval officers rather than army officers one of them grabbed Napier's midshipman David Frazer who was a short superintendent loading the prizes by his neck cloth and hauled him over the pommel of his horse midshipman quite small people so he picked him up the kidnap was then galloped off but fortunately for all concerned Frazer's neck cloth was obviously cheap and rather badly made because it split and it got away he ran back towards his boat crew who picked their weapons up and fronted up and the Americans thought better of this the bold horsemen were in fact captain David Porter USN who's new ship USS Essex just been destroyed in Washington Navy Yard that was the second Essex he had destroyed in a single year the other ship destroyed the fire the USS Argus and her prospective commander captain Creighton was the man who grabbed Frazer and the third man was a midshipman Porter was fortunate to get away with this he was an undischarged parole that was he had yet to be exchanged as a prisoner of war by the British therefore he was in violation of his parole and he was in civilian clothes he could have been shot had he been arrested I think the British would just have made made something embarrassing out of him Maya Charles Sims was furious so was Charlie Napier just as Sims was trying to explain this by writing a letter to James Alexander Gordon in his room with the injured midshipman in tow as in look what they've done and I quote with the strongest expressions of rage in his countenance it's likely Sims had a hard job understanding what Charlie was saying because the more angry he got the thicker his Scots accent became and I suspect he dropped back into some Scots vernacular to express his rage Sims fortunately explained that it's not anything local that it was some idiots from the US Navy and they really shouldn't by the time the thing was settled the British ships had got their gun ports open again and they would beat to quarters they were ready for anything but it all then calmed down Porto went back to his proper job building a battery at the White House and Gordon began to send his vessels down the river that night this was going to be difficult they had 21 captured merchant ships an American gunboat and all of their own vessels to get down the river and they had of course only the ship's companies to man the prize vessels they had 16,000 pounds of flour 1,000 hogs heads of tobacco 150 barrels of cotton along with wine, sugar and sundry other goods this sounds very exciting Gordon may have been in a hurry but they didn't leave without cramming every last space in the holds of all of the ships merchant and warships to the utmost degree Napier regretted bitterly 100,000 barrels of flour behind greedy fellow both men knew their crews would need all their enthusiasm for the task they were going to have to fight their way down and at the moment the wind was dead foul and first the Uralis and then devastation ran harder ground as they beat down river so it was going to be difficult at 5 am on the 3rd the squadron finally weighed and began warping down the river thunder and lightning appeared likely devastation then grounded three small boats came down to attack they were fire ships sent by Commodore Rogers devastation beat them off and the boats were driven into the river and it expended John Rogers then landed in Alexandria got his guns out and forced the town mayor to haul the American flag back up the town mayor didn't want to haul the flag up until the Brits were around the bend and were well out of sight he was actually more concerned about the British than he was about John Rogers which is I think quite illustrious next morning on the 4th Napier open firing some troops assure that were coming in range of his boats and he could hear heavy firing from the direction of Fort Washington the Americans were back in the position it was very wise they had broken up those guns the enemy's batteries were coming into action and the squadron was having difficulty coordinating because ships were running aground and having to be hauled off the river bank consistently this to the White House battery both Etner and Meteor were set light by incendiary projectiles from the shore battery before a well-placed shell from Meteor destroyed the furnace nothing like a bomb to make your day go well the White House, another excellent defensive position pointed out by George Washington who was clearly very worried about the British coming up the river and doing a bit of raiding had been quite well armed but Porter never reversed to a little bit of pointless bombast a flag over the battery saying free trade and sailor's rights it was the same flag he'd flown over the USS Essex when he lost it at Valparaiso earlier that year but to his credit he fought the battle with considerable skill he moved his artillery around kept his men mostly under cover but the British again had a solution they waited for the wind to be in their favor they then sailed down and put the two frigates right alongside the battery kept their heads down while all the prizes and the bomb vessels went past lobbed a few shells in and then anchored up when they were out of range it was a very neat piece of work they weren't going to capture the battery they weren't going to land, they just wanted the Americans to get their heads down so they could get past ten British casualties, mostly musketeer he tells you how close they were to the Maryland shore close enough for a musket no more than a hundred paces and at that range cannon fire was pretty savage that evening Porter got his 32 pound of cannon he needed it was too late, the British had gone so they'd outpaced the reinforcements so on the fifth suppressed the defenders fire and Napier and Gordon very cleverly shifted the cargo in the hold of the ships so that they were healed over to an angle so they could fire up into the woods and the hills to clear the Americans out of their position Americans hadn't anticipated this again something that a Mediterranean officer would know but somebody who'd not been in the Mediterranean wouldn't British gunnery was exceptionally good Seahorses 1st Lieutenant Henry King directed the first two guns and knocked out two American pieces with the opening rounds Napier observed the Americans behaved remarkably well but they couldn't stop the British passing Porter was expecting a landing doesn't happen they drove the Americans out of their works and sailed past with some loss more to the Americans than to the British towards the end of the action Napier was hit in the neck by a rifle ball almost certainly by a Virginia militiamen from Jefferson County I can't remember how I know this but apparently they were American riflemen from Jefferson County and it was a rifle ball he was saved from serious injury by the thick collar of his coat but while the captain of the fleet later brushed it off as a minor thing and Napier remained in action for the rest of his life his head hung to one side his neck was tilted permanently to one side that was his third serious injury in the Napoleonic era once the frigates had sailed past David Porter gallantly sent a torpedo after them this would have been personally made by Robert Fulton but it exploded harmlessly in the evening the convoy approached Oliver Hazard Perry's battery at Indian Head but despite Porter's heroics Perry simply hadn't had enough time to get more than one serious gun into position so the British essentially do the same thing they get a ship which has run aground off the shore they then get the frigates in position to suppress the enemy's fire and late in the evening they run past the battery after dark Erebus the ship that had been afloat that had been aground he's got off firing salvos of rockets which at night must have been quite impressive salvos of congregate rockets two British sailors on Uralis were killed and were buried in the river three wounded men would linger but they too would die shortly afterwards as they approached the cattle bottoms the next day the bigger ships unloaded some cargo into the smaller prizes but even so they managed to get aground several times but by now the Americans were no longer harassing them and they were able to get on their way on the 8th the frigate HMS Havana sent a boat up to Gordon and at 1300 that day they anchored up in the cattle bottoms they rejoined the flag on the 11th leaving the Potomac once the Potomac squadron rejoined Cochrane's flag captain, Sir Edward Codrington had an opportunity to discuss the raid with Gordon and Navy Codrington's brilliant officer his performance at Trafalgar was probably the most sophisticated of any captain on that day they overcame difficulties which could have dismayed many men in either of the two professions and they brought out 21 prizes many of which they weighed, caulked and mastered through the most difficult shell navigation in spite of batteries erected to stop them and a vast number of troops firing down on their decks in their narrow parts the frigates were even obliged to take their guns out on account of getting aground and put them in again in short it is nothing less brilliant than the capture of Washington and those employ deserve laurel crowns Cochrane agreed the operation had, and I quote, exceeded my most sanguine expectations in an operation lasting 23 days the British squadron had pushed up to the head of the navigation destroyed a significant fortress seized a major town taken an extensive hall of prizes and returned with minimal loss despite the best efforts of a thoroughly armed American government William James the preeminent naval historian of this war a contemporary of it and British as you will probably gather from what he had to say reckoned that this of all the great operations of the long wars from 1793 to 1815 was the finest coastal operation of the era and I quote the most brilliant of the many detached operations of the American war Gordon's reward would be a detached command in the Gulf of Mexico where you hope to make yet more prize money Napier went off to fire those rockets that are in the national anthem that you sing he literally fired those rockets he was the in command of the squadron that went up the ferry branch of the Patapsco on the last night of that operation Gordon recorded and I quote Captain Napier I owe more obligations than I have words to express the remarkable refit of the Uralis after the tornado on the 25th Napier knew the success of the operation reflected at the outstanding skill of every officer and man in the squadron it wasn't too clever captains it was an astonishingly good professional team some have argued that the Potomac raid actually delayed the attack on Baltimore and thereby aided the Americans in truth it diverted American naval and militia forces and particularly vital heavy artillery which could never make it back to Baltimore at anything like the pace that the British were able to move Rogers, Porter and Perry along with Scarce Seaman did manage to get back but the heavy guns didn't in responding to a relatively minor raid by a highly mobile British amphibious strike force the Americans put their resources in a less important place two days after they cleared Point Lookout Gordon and Napier would be in action off Baltimore and the British troops would land at North Point 15 years later Napier requested a testimonial and here is the famous William Charles cartoon which I think is just brilliant look how the hair is standing up on end and this classical Minotaur is the ultimate emblem of British sea power Jack Taur as Minotaur wonderful picture 15 years later Napier requested a testimonial of his services from Admiral Cochran and here's the Baltimore one in which the Minotaur's are being driven away it didn't happen like that the Americans did not drive the British back to their boats at Baltimore the British left of their own accord because there were not enough of them to capture the city it certainly wasn't like that and here is Charlie in his prime in 1840 capturing the Palestinian fortress of Sidon from the Egyptians but 10 years before that he'd requested this testimonial from Alexander Cochran his old Admiral and he commanded him in this campaign so Alexander was happy to oblige I quote when on the coast of America you commanded one of the frigates sent up the Potomac to Alexandria to draw off the attention of the enemy while the army was advancing against Washington so James Golden who commanded the detachment spoke in the highest terms of your conduct as well as the other officers under his command and the service performed on that occasion is well known at the Admiralty I think you were wounded in the neck when on that service if you went on to have the most astonishing career he would be a mercenary in the Portuguese Civil War of 1834 which he settled in a single afternoon in a brilliant naval battle he then became general in the Portuguese Civil War and also helped to finish that he then was the major reform figure in the Royal Navy leading to the improvement of professional conditions for seamen and for warrant officers he was the first man to build and operate iron hulled steam powered vessels spending his prize money on the River Seine which are captured in art by J.M.W. Turner the artist of Britishness as the conquest of France he said Waterloo is nothing the plan was that British Army would storm the American positions and the Royal Navy would attack at the same time the Royal Navy set off as directed and the British Army decided to stop for breakfast and by the time they'd finished breakfast McDonough did a very good thing he realized he couldn't fight the British on the lake so he just moored up close in shore and said come and get me if the British Army had done their job they'd have turned him out of that position and he would have been beaten but the British weren't going to invade New York they just wanted to control the lake to make sure the Americans didn't go up to Montreal and Quebec so it was cutting off an American assault line it wasn't they weren't going to do Saratoga again they'd learned their lesson the Brits are slow but they're not that slow once you get off the main waterway you can't win in America there are too many of them you stick to the bits you control the water lines of communication is the only thing the Brits are going to go for in this war because they have no manpower even raising the colonial marines the local enslaved people who ran away and joined the British they never had enough manpower to be a serious player once they were outside the reach of their ships guns so British power is where the cannon can reach which is about a mile and a half from the ship that's Britain's war against America anything further than that they're taking a chance as they did at Washington was there a retaliation? yeah I think so was the raid on Washington and Alexander a retaliation for the American destruction of what is now Toronto many Canadians rather wish you'd go back and do it again because it's a I think it's a rather ugly town I know most of Canada quite well and it's my least favourite Canadian town by a country mile it only became so in November 1814 when somebody asked a question in the House of Commons as to why we'd torch the public buildings of Washington and the government minister couldn't think of anything better to say so he said that, that wasn't why they did it and the real reason was to try and get the American Army off the Canadian border to come down and defend Washington the American Army had invaded Canada in 1812 1813, 1814 and the last thing the British wanted was them to carry on doing this so by attacking them down south they hoped that the American Army would have to turn around and come south the fact there had been some outrages on the Canadian frontier the town of Newark was much more badly treated than York they burned the town in the middle of winter and drove the people out into the snow that was really very barbaric so there were things happening up there but as the war went on opinions hardened and people's attitudes changed what started off as a slightly apologetic war by the end it had started to become really quite unpleasant and certain sectional interests on both sides had a had a rationale for this but no it certainly wasn't done for that reason but it was a very nice label when the Americans said that's barbaric you can't do that well you started it which goes for the war really, we didn't start it we had far bigger things to do in Europe in America the war starts with the invasion of Florida which belonged to Spanish and then Canada which sort of belonged to us of course Canada wasn't a country then it was called British North America it was part of the British Empire so don't let the Canadians tell you they won the war of 1812 because they didn't exist Canada becomes a country in 1867 would the situation be different if Napier had been on the American team yes Napier had been at war for 20 years there was simply nothing he didn't know about the business in hand and his track record is so extraordinary that it's highly unlikely he would have failed to come up with something somebody asked me the other day you know how did the American naval officers rank up against the British well a couple of them would have been in the top 20 or 30 British frigate captains so good but the British had people at the very top battle-hardened combat veterans and there's simply no substitute for experience there's nobody in this war who's as brilliant as Phillip Brooke ship to ship combat nobody and Henry Hope who commanded the endimion when she took the USS president probably the finest action between two ships under full sail ever fought astonishingly clever men and these were veterans they'd spent their whole lives doing this so as good as the American officers were they just didn't have the background and the training to match up to when the British sent their first 11 over here early 1813 and then again in 1814 instead of sending the third 11 they sent the best guys a bit like the cricket match we'd send the proper England cricket to you and the one you know but scratch team yeah in 1812 the British squadron on the North American station was made up of ships that weren't fit to fight the French and officers who weren't good enough to fight the French and by 1814 the people who'd been dealing with the French were over here and everything changed they came over in numbers but more importantly they came over with quality British didn't send too many ships over here remember this idea that it's the war between Britain and America about seven seven and a half percent the Royal Navy was over here about seven percent the British Army was over here so it wasn't Britain and America having a war it was the Americans fighting a little bit of Britain while the rest of the British were fighting everybody else so it was we were sort of doing it with one hand behind our back fending off what was happening here until the war in Europe finishes and then you know 4,000 troops maybe 8,000 troops it's nothing very small naval reinforcement we just want the war to go away British war aims in this war just go away and behave yourselves at no stage did the British want anything apart from peace and quiet to get on with what they were doing so that's what the war is ultimately about for the British and so the peace is status quo anti at the back in the war of 1812 we've just had a very good two day seminar on this and I think it's quite clear that despite those attempts to prove that the Americans really just wanted to get a bit of respect on the street from the big boys Canada Florida those are the things that really motivate people different parts of the United States have different views the Federalists just wanted to do more business they don't want to fight a war but the Republicans out west they want to clear the Indians out they want to get more territory and they don't want the Brits up there interfering with the Indians and supporting their attempts to hold their territory guys down south want more land to plump more cotton on because they're using up the land they've already got so there's an expansionist movement down there you know what's the battle of New Orleans about it's about the extension of plantation slavery you know when the Germans army do the day after the battle they round up the escaped slaves they don't chase the British back to their boats they're rounding up their property and that's why they put that big statue in the square you've seen the statue in the square in New Orleans Andrew Jackson on his horse it's just like the one in DC and during the Union occupation in the Civil War he preserved the Union just to know the locals so American war aims are expansionist and if you don't think they were why did they invade Mexico in 1846? what were they after? the United States is a land power and it's concerned with more land Britain is a sea power and it's concerned with controlling the seas the British have no capacity to rule large amounts of land that's the lesson of the American War of Independence we don't have the manpower to do this so let's do the other thing if we control the seas then we can keep what we're doing safe that's what Britain is fighting for the preservation of her Maritime belligerent rights the ability to blockade to arrest neutral ships to impress sailors all that stuff the Americans complained about that is British strategy that is the basis of British power if you take that away Britain is a tiny little weak, indefensible island off the north coast of Europe that can't even grow enough food to feed its own population so if we give that up we're toast if we give that up with no real army and a pretty small navy you're asking for trouble British would have fought till the end of time to preserve those rights they wouldn't let the Americans talk about them at Ghent and they wouldn't let the Europeans talk about them at Vienna either that's the deal, that's off the table anything else we can talk about but not that and for the next 100 years the British rule the world because they have the power to break anybody's economy how's the war end over here America's bankrupt maritime belligerent rights allow you to bankrupt your enemy Napoleon was bankrupt the Russians were bankrupt that's why they fought Napoleon the Americans were bankrupt that's British strategy burning a bit of Washington was most unusual we very rarely got to the enemy's capital city but we did get in their bank and take all their money no money, no war over there you'll need to change addiction a little Charles Napier was one of the best that Britain had to offer he's on the Potomac and he talked about the American navy and not being quite a season but yet on the Potomac you have our two best Captain David Porter and Captain Oliver Hazard Perry fighting against Napier but they're on land not on ships and we still hold up the Potomac spot for five days and because the main British fleet the chest needs to turn around and come up looking for so I think that's a pretty good deal they didn't do too badly but they're still lost that's a good question though their objective was to destroy and they failed at the end of the war Napier comes back from I haven't had a chance to read that but I will at the end of the war Napier comes back from Bermuda where he's refitted his ship and he's blockading inside the Chesapeake it's early January it's miserable weather it's blowing a gale it's pretty nasty out there he's bored rigid so he writes to Captain Charles Gordon who commands the USS Constellation that's blockaded in Norfolk and he says you know what you know that Shannon Chesapeake thing why don't we just got nothing else to do here's the Uralis so many guns so many men I promise that we'll do this properly for the honor of the flag and Gordon writes back and says yeah you're on I'm up for that too because I've been sitting here for 18 months doing absolutely nothing so let's do it and the very next morning a letter arrives and it says war's over so there was very nearly a chance for the US Navy to have a serious go at Charles Napier at sea they'd agreed terms Brooke and James Lawrence never agreed to fight Brooke's challenge never reached Lawrence he went out anyway he didn't need a challenge so there was going to be one last frigate battle in the Chesapeake which would have meant that instead of the score in frigate victories being three each somebody might have ended up winning it could have been four three I must admit I do back Charlie because I think he was very very good but thank you my pleasure this was a real treat and really appreciate you honoring us I also would like to introduce Alice and Silberberg our vice mayor the sort of heir to mayor Charlie you have some explaining to do I will accept your surrender and with that I will present to Professor Arceil of surrender there you are thank you very much again I want to thank McGuire Woods for their sponsorship and also for the Masonic Memorial allowing us to use this fantastic space so thank you very much and good night