The Surrender Of Hull At Detroit

New York Evening Post, 31 August 1812

On the disgraceful and deplorable results of our first military efforts in Canada, we are not in a temper to say much. How much soever we deprecated this ruinous war at the outset; however satisfied we were that the whole plan of the campaign was miserably imbecile and must be utterly inefficient-yet such a catastrophe as is just announced was beyond our most gloomy apprehensions. Mr. Madison, Mr. Gallatin, Dr. Eustis, and Dr. Hamilton, it was evident, must be utterly unequal to cope with the experienced veteran British officers in Canada. And when, besides this disheartening fact, we beheld how small a force was relied upon, what could reasonable men feel but despair? With inferior numbers and inferior skill, the odds were fearful indeed.

Yet we did not expect so deep a stain upon our country's character. A nation, counting eight millions of souls, deliberating and planning for a whole winter and spring and part of a summer, the invasion and conquest of a neighboring province; at length making that invasion; and in one month its army retiring-captured-and captured almost without firing a gun! Miserably deficient in practical talent must that Administration be which formed the plan of that invasion; or the army which has thus surrendered must be a gang of more cowardly poltroons than ever disgraced a country. A parallel to this melancholy defeat is not to be found in all history. But we do not, we cannot brand our countrymen in General Hull's army with cowardice. We shall not till we are compelled. For when were Americans known to shrink from danger?-when have they not been heroes? But the folly, the weakness, the utter incapacity of our Administration to conduct affairs of difficulty to a successful issue, has not only been the tedious theme of many an appeal to our fellow-citizens, but is felt in the privations and distresses of almost every man, woman, and child in this once happy and prosperous country. And he who can longer doubt that incapacity, would not believe though one should rise from the dead.

What! March an army into a country where there were not more than seven or eight hundred soldiers to oppose them, and not make the army large enough! March them from a country which is the granary of the world, and let them famish on the very frontiers for want of provisions! Issue a gasconading proclamation threatening to exterminate the enemy, and surrender your whole army to them! If there be judgment in this people, they will see the utter unfitness of our rulers for anything beyond management, intrigue, and electioneering. They have talents enough to inflame a misguided populace against their best friends; but they cannot protect the nation from insult and disgrace. They have talents enough to persecute the pupils and disciples of Washington, but not to meet the enemies whom they have called into the field. "Woe to the people whose King is a child!"