ulars, a generally
accepted belief. Against him had been arrayed two of the ablest lawyers
of the bar. Naval officers of reputation had on the witness stand
criticised his theory of the battle and contradicted his statements. He
had been assisted in the conduct of the case by his nephew; but outside
of this he had received help from no one. Sympathy with him, there was
little; desire for his success, there was less; and the referees (p. 221)
could hardly fail to feel to some extent the influence that pervaded
the whole country. In the face of all these odds he had fought the
battle and won it. He had wrung respect and admiration from a hostile
public sentiment which he had openly and contemptuously defied. Upon the
essential matters in dispute the verdict of three men, of highest rank
in their profession and skilled in the weighing of conflicting evidence,
had been entirely in his favor.

Cooper followed up his victory by a pamphlet which appeared in August,
1843, entitled, "The Battle of Lake Erie: or, Answers to Messrs. Burges,
Duer, and Mackenzie." In this he went fully over the ground. No reply
was made to it; there was in fact none to be made. The popular tradition
could best be maintained by silence. Silence at any rate during his
lifetime was preserved, and silence in cases where it would have been
creditable to have said something. It certainly affords justification
additional to that already given, for the contemptuous opinion expressed
by Cooper of the American press, that the newspapers which had been
loudest in the denunciation of his history, never so much as alluded to
the result of the trial brought to test authoritatively the fairness and
impartiality of the narrative for which he had been condemned.

After reading patiently all that has been written on both sides of this
question, it seems to me that not only was the verdict of the
arbitrators a just one, but that Cooper was right in the view he took.
Still, where evidence is conflicting there is ample room for difference
of opinion; and in regard to the conduct of Elliott at Lake Erie the
evidence is diametrically opposed. The only secure method, therefore, of
obtaining and maintaining a comfortable bigotry of belief on the (p. 222)
subject is to read carefully the testimony on one side and to despise
the other so thoroughly as to refrain from even looking at it. This was
then and has since been the course followed by the thick and thin
partisans