2009-04
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/31/2009
By His Excellency Lieut. General Sir George Prevost, Commander of His Majesty's Forces in North America, To the Inhabitants of His Majesty's Province in North America, A PROCLAMATION, true copy, 8pp., January 12, 1814, 8-1/2" x 12-1/2," manuscript, VG. In part, "The complete success which has attended his Majesty's Arms on the Niagara Frontier, having placed in possession the whole of the Enemy's Forts on that line, it became a matter of imperious duty to retaliate on America, the miseries which the unfortunate Inhabitants of Newark had been made to suffer upon the evacuation of Fort George. The Villages of Lewiston, Black Rock and Buffalo have accordingly been burned." Prevost continues with an incident-by-incident review of the American forces describing "wanton acts of destruction" leading to his scalding Newark statements. "Those who shall here after read in the pages of history ... that in the enlightened era of the 19th century... the troops of a nation calling itself civilized and Christian, had wantonly and without the shadow of protest, forced 400 helpless women and children to grist their dwellings and to be the mournful spectators of the conflagration and total destruction of all that belongs to them. ... On the night of that day, the American troops under Brigadier General McClure, being about to evacuate Fort George, which they could no longer retain, by an act of inhumanity disgraceful to themselves ... set fire to upwards of 150 houses composing the beautiful village of Newark, and burned them to the ground ..." He closes, "...prompt and signal vengeance will be taken for every departure by the enemy from that system at Warfare which ought to subsist between enlightened and civilized nations." PREVOST, Sir George (1767-1816), British soldier and governor in chief of Canada (1811-15). In 1811 he became governor in Canada and was conspicuous for his conciliation of the French Canadians. As commander in chief of the British forces in Canada in the War of 1812, he suffered public humiliation for the retreat at Sackets Harbor (1813) and the defeat at Plattsburgh (1814). He was recalled to England but died before his court-martial started.
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