5751. NAVY, Bravery of.—[further continued] .
I * * * congratulate
you on the destruction of a second hostile
fleet on the Lakes by Macdonough.
While our enemies cannot but feel shame for
their barbarous achievements at Washington
[burning of Capitol], they will be stung to
the soul by these repeated victories over
them on that element on which they wish
the world to think them invincible. We have
dissipated that error. They must now feel a
conviction themselves that we can beat them
gun to gun, ship to ship, and fleet to fleet,
and that their early successes on the land
have been either purchased from traitors, or
obtained from raw men entrusted of necessity
with commands for which no experience had
qualified them, and that every day is adding
that experience to unquestioned bravery.—
To President Madison. Washington ed. vi, 386.
(M.
Sep. 1814)
See Capitol.
