7, p. 2.]
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas the enemy by a sudden incursion have succeeded in invading the
capital of the nation, defended at the moment by troops less numerous
than their own and almost entirely of the militia, during their
possession of which, though for a single day only, they wantonly
destroyed the public edifices, having no relation in their structure to
operations of war nor used at the time for military annoyance, some of
these edifices being also costly monuments of taste and of the arts, and
others depositories of the public archives, not only precious to the
nation as the memorials of its origin and its early transactions, but
interesting to all nations as contributions to the general stock of
historical instruction and political science; and
Whereas advantage has been taken of the loss of a fort more immediately
guarding the neighboring town of Alexandria to place the town within the
range of a naval force too long and too much in the habit of abusing its
superiority wherever it can be applied to require as the alternative of
a general conflagration an undisturbed plunder of private property,
which has been executed in a manner peculiarly distressing to the
inhabitants, who had inconsiderately cast themselves upon the justice
and generosity of the victor; and
Whereas it now appears by a direct communication from the British
commander on the American station to be his avowed purpose to employ the
force under his direction "in destroying and laying waste such towns and
districts upon the coast as may be found assailable," adding to this
declaration the insulting pretext that it is in retaliation for a wanton
destruction committed by the army of the United States in Upper Canada,
when it is notorious that no destruction has been committed, which,
notwithstanding the multiplied outrages previously committed by the
enemy was not unauthorized, and promptly shown to be so, and that the
United States have been as constant in their endeavors to reclaim the
enemy from such outrages by the contrast of their own example as they
have been ready to terminate on reasonable conditions the war itself;
and
Whereas these proceedings and declared purposes, which exhibit a
deliberate disregard of the principles of humanity and the rules of
civilized warfare, and which must give to the existing war a character
of extended devastation and barbarism at the very moment of negotiations
for peace, invited by the enemy himself, leave no prospect of safety to
anything within the reach of his predatory and incendiary operations but
in manful and universal determination to chastise and expel the invader:
Now, therefore, I, James Madison, President of the United States, do
issue this my proclamation, exhorting all the good people thereof to
unite their hearts and hands in giving effect to the ample means
possessed for that purpose.
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