TWO:Before entering Washington, General Ross sent in a flag of truceor, rather, he carried one himself, for he accompanied itto see that all was done that could be done to arrange terms, without further mischief or bloodshed. He demanded that all military stores should be delivered up, and that the other public property should be ransomed at a certain sum. But scarcely had they entered the place, with the flag of truce displayed, whenwith total disregard of all such customs established by civilised nations in warthe party was fired upon, and the horse of General Ross killed under him. There was nothing for it but to order the troops forward. The city was taken possession of, under strict orders to respect private property, and to destroy only that of the State. Under these orders, the Capitol, the President's house, the Senate-house, the House of Representatives, the Treasury, the War-office, the arsenal, the dockyard, and the ropewalk were given to the flames; the bridge over the Potomac, and some other public works, were blown up; a frigate on the stocks and some smaller craft were burnt. All was done that could be done by General Ross, and the officers under him, to protect private property; but the soldiers were so incensed at the treachery by which the Americans had sought to blow up the seamen, by the firing on the flag of truce, and the unprincipled manner in which the Americans had carried on the war in Canada, as well as by the insults and gasconading of the Americans on all occasions, that they could not be restrained from committing some excesses. Yet it may be said that never was the capital of a nation so easily taken, and never did the capital of a nation which had given so much irritating provocation escape with so little scathe. The following evening it was evacuated in perfect order, and without any enemy appearing to molest the retreat. On the 30th the troops were safely re-embarked.
TWO:There was one restitution, however, which the Allies had too delicately passed over on their former visit to Paristhat of the works of art which Napoleon and his generals had carried off from every town in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, during their wars. As has been already stated, museums had been freely pillaged by Buonaparte or by his orders. Accordingly, there was now a great stripping of the Louvre, and other places, of the precious pictures and statues which the hands of the greatest marauder that the world had ever seen had accumulated there. The "Horses of the Sun," from St. Mark's, Venice, the "Venus di Medici," the "Apollo Belvedere," the "Horses of the Car of Victory," which Buonaparte had carried away from Berlin, and many a glorious painting by the old masters, precious books, manuscripts, and other objects of antiquity, now travelled back to their respective original localities, to the great joy of their owners, and the infinite disgust of the French, who deemed themselves robbed by this defeat of robbery.Grenville, being on the look-out for new taxes, had paid particular attention to the rapid growth of the American colonies, and was inspired with the design of drawing a revenue from them. The scheme had been suggested to Sir Robert Walpole, when his Excise Bill failed, by Sir William Keith, who had been governor of Pennsylvania; but Sir Robert had a far deeper insight into human nature than the shallow and obstinate Grenville. He replied, "I have already Old England set against me, and do you think I will have New England set against me too?"
