1813, with, however, one important difference. The American generals, having by this time brought their troops to order, were able to fight with much better effect. Their attack on the Niagara peninsula led to hot fighting at Chippewa (July 5) and Lundy’s Lane (July 25), the first a success for the Americans, the second a drawn battle. The fall of Napoleon having now freed the British government from the obligation to retain its army in Europe, troops from Spain began to pour in. But on the Canadian frontier they made little difference. In August 1814 Sir George Prevost attacked the American forces at Champlain. But his naval support, ill prepared, was hurried into action by him at Plattsburg on the 11th of September, and defeated. Prevost then retired. His management of the war, more especially on Lake Champlain, was severely criticized, and he was threatened with a court-martial, but died before the trial came on. A British occupation of part of the coast of Maine proved to be mere demonstration.
Operations on the American Coast.—When the war began the British naval forces were unequal to the work of blockading the whole coast. They were also much engaged in seeking for the American cruisers under Rodgers, Decatur and Bainbridge. The British government, having need of American foodstuffs for its army in Spain, was willing to benefit by the discontent of the New Englanders. No blockade of New England was at first attempted. The Delaware and Chesapeake were declared in a state of blockade on the 26th of December 1812. This was extended to the whole coast south of Narragansett by November 1813, and to the whole American coast on the 31st of May 1814. In the meantime much illicit trade was carried on by collusive captures arranged between American traders and British officers. American ships were fraudulently transferred to neutral flags. Eventually the United States government was driven to issue orders for the purpose of stopping illicit trading, and the commerce of the country was ruined. The now overpowering strength of the British fleet enabled it to occupy the Chesapeake and to execute innumerable attacks of a destructive character on docks and harbours. The burning by the American general McClure, on the 10th of December 1813, of Newark (Niagara on the Lake), for which severe retaliation was taken at Buffalo, was made the excuse for much destruction. The most famous of these destructive raids was the burning of the public buildings at Washington by Sir Alexander Cochrane, who succeeded Warren in April in the naval command, and General Robert Ross. The expedition was carried out between the 19th and 29th of August 1814, and was well organized and vigorously executed.[1] On the 24th the American militia, collected at Bladensburg to protect the capital, fled almost before they were attacked. A subsequent attack on Baltimore, in which General Ross was killed (September 12, 1814), was a failure. The expedition to New Orleans (q.v.) is separately dealt with.
Authorities.—In his Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 Captain Mahan has given a careful account of the war by land and sea with reference to services. The Naval War of 1812, by Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1882), is lively but somewhat passionate, and not free from prejudice. A vehement statement of the Canadian side will be found in How Canada was held for the Empire, by James Hannay (London, Edinburgh, Toronto, 1905). See also The Canadian War of 1812, by Charles P. Lucas (Oxford, 1906). (D. H.)
AMERICUS, a city and the county-seat of Sumter county, Georgia, U.S.A., about 71 m. S.S.W. of Macon. Pop. (1880) 3635; (1890) 6398; (1900) 7674 (4661 of negro descent); (1910) 8063. It is served by the Central of Georgia and the Seaboard Air Line railways, and is the seat of the Third Congressional District Agricultural High School, a branch of the state university of Georgia. The city is in a rich sugar-cane and fruit country, is a large cotton and mule and horse market, and has division shops of the Seaboard Air Line railway. Among the city’s manufactures are cotton-seed oil, fertilizers, chemicals, iron, carriages and wagons and harness (especially horse collars). The city owns the waterworks; the water-supply is obtained from artesian wells. Americus was settled in 1832, and was first chartered as a city in 1855.
AMERSFOORT, a town in the province of Utrecht, Holland, on the navigable Eem, and a junction station 14 m. by rail N.E. by E. of Utrecht. Pop. (1900) 19,089. It is situated in the midst of picturesque and undulating country, consisting of wide sandy heaths and woods, and dotted with many fine country houses. One of the most interesting of its few historic monuments is the Koppelpoort, an old gateway situated at the end of a fine avenue of trees bordering the canal. Close by is a lofty Gothic tower (1500), which belonged to the ancient church of St Mary, which was wrecked by an explosion of gunpowder in 1787. The large plain church of St George dates from the first half of the 13th century. There is also a Jansenist church, to which a seminary is attached. Besides these there are a town hall, a court of primary jurisdiction, industrial and other schools. Amersfoort has a large garrison, consisting chiefly of artillery, and manufactures woollen goods, cotton, silk, glass and brandy. It has also a considerable trade in tobacco, grown in the neighbourhood, and in corn and fish.
AMERSHAM, a market town in the Wycombe parliamentary division of Buckinghamshire, England, 24 m. W.N.W. of London by the Metropolitan railway. Pop. (1901) 2674. It is pleasantly situated in the narrow valley of the Misbourne stream, which is flanked by the well-wooded slopes of the Chiltern Hills. The church of St Mary is almost entirely Perpendicular, and has a beautiful south porch, brasses of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries and numerous monuments, several of which, in a chantry, commemorate members of the family of Drake, lords of the manor. The town hall was built by Sir William Drake in 1642. At Coleshill, near Amersham, Edmund Waller the poet was born in 1606; he sat in parliament for the former borough of Amersham. The town has flour mills and breweries, and some straw-plaiting and lace-making are carried on in the vicinity. The district is one of the most beautiful near London; the village of Chenies, overlooking the valley of the Chess, is especially picturesque.
Amersham (Elmodesham, Agmondesham, Hagmondesham, Aumundesham, Homersham) at the time of the Domesday Survey was divided into no less than six holdings. The manor, or chief of them, was held by Geoffrey de Mandeville. At the time of Edward the Confessor it was held by Queen Edith. The manor afterwards descended to the families of Fitz Piers, Bohun and Strafford, and was granted by Henry VIII. to Sir John Russell, ancestor of the earls of Bedford. In 1638 Francis, earl of Bedford, conveyed it to William Drake, by whose descendants it is still held. The north chapel in the church of St Michael, Chenies, has been the burial-place of the Russell family since its erection in 1556, and contains a number of fine memorials, notably that of Anne, countess of Bedford (d. 1558), who founded the chapel. Amersham was formerly a parliamentary borough by prescription, and returned two members in 1300, 1306, 1307 and 1309. In 1623 this privilege was restored, and was only annulled by the Reform Bill of 1832. The annual fair, in September, is held under a charter secured by Geoffrey Fitz Peter, earl of Essex, in 1200, that on Whit Monday under a charter of 1614, secured by Edward, earl of Bedford, which transferred the Friday market, also granted under the earlier charter, to Tuesday.
AMES, FISHER (1758–1808), American statesman, orator and political writer, son of Nathaniel Ames, a physician, was born at Dedham, Massachusetts, on the 9th of April 1758. He graduated at Harvard College in 1774, and began the practice of the law at Dedham in 1781, but eventually abandoned that profession for the more congenial pursuit of politics. He was a prominent member of the Massachusetts convention which (February 1788) ratified for that state the Federal Constitution, and in the same year, having entered the lower house in the state legislature, he distinguished himself greatly by his eloquence and readiness in debate. During the eight years of Washington’s administration (1789–1797) he was a prominent Federalist member of the national House of Representatives. On the 28th of April 1796, when the Republicans, hostile to the Jay Treaty, were on the point of holding up the appropriation necessary for its execution, Ames, who had just arisen from a sick-bed, made what has been considered the greatest speech of his life; before the delivery of his
- ↑ The burning of Washington was an act of vandalism by no means approved of by many of the British officers who were compelled to take part in it. (See Smith, Sir Henry George Wakelyn.)
