or safety, and
compelled the fleet to put to sea.

HUMILIATION OF ENGLAND.

No event in the modern history of her military operations brought a
deeper disappointment and a keener sense of humiliation to the English
Government, and to the nation, than did the disastrous failure of this
expedition, fitted out in haughty pride for the invasion and conquest of
Louisiana. The true story of the campaign and battles was in the main
suppressed by the Tory press, in the interest of the reigning dynasty
and to save the pride and prestige of a really great and imperial
people. A coincidence occurred to aid in diverting the mind of the
public from the contemplation of the deplorable event. On the 23d of
February, 1815, news of the defeat at New Orleans reached London. On the
same day arrived the intelligence of the escape of Napoleon from Elba,
and of his landing on the shores of France. Public attention was
diverted by the new sensation. The government press fostered the
illusion, and the horrors of New Orleans were not so fully known or
felt.

William Cobbett, the noted Liberal essayist and author, of England,
wrote of the event: "And this was all the people of the duped nation
ever heard of the matter. Bonaparte had landed from Elba, and the battle
of Waterloo soon succeeded. Both the Government and the people were glad
to forget all about this unmerciful beating in America. This battle of
New Orleans broke the heart of European despotism. The man who won it
did, in that one act, more for the good and the honor of the human race
than ever was done by any other man."

The author, discussing the incidents and issues of this remarkable
campaign, in the light of the vast superiority in both military and
naval forces of the British over the Americans, their more thorough
equipment, and their veteran discipline under the best-trained officers
in the world, put the inquiry: "How can we account for the repeated
reverses, and the final over-whelming defeat and expulsion from the
country, of such a vast and formidable armament by an inferior body of
raw recruits, suddenly improvised for defense from the militia of the
country, and but poorly armed and equipped?" "Providence!" was the
reply; nothing less than Providence could have baffled and beaten such
a powerful foe, bent on conquest and spoliation for a wicked purpose,
with a wicked spirit, and in a wicked cause. England's boastful pride
and intolerant and cruel insolence toward