Note 219 — Chapter LVI

The barbarous act of General McClure in burning Niagara is ascribed to directions from the American Secretary at War; but the many nefarious acts committed by McClure could hardly be owing to directions from Washington. Mr. Christie says that McClure "having, pursuant to the directions of the American Secretary at War, most inhumanly, on the 10th of December, set fire to the flourishing village of Newark, containing about 150 houses, which Were reduced to ashes, leaving the wretched and forlorn inhabitants, with upwards of 400 women and children, exposed to the accumulated horrors of famine and the inclemency of a Canadian winter."

The British, under the command of Colonel Murray, scarcely amounting to 500 men, including Indians and militia, immediately occupied Fort George. The barbarous policy of the American Government in destroying Newark, exasperated the army as well as the inhabitants on the frontier, of whose impatience for retaliation General Drummond promptly availed himself after the occupation of Fort George, by adopting the resolution of carrying the American Fort Niagara by surprise. (Chap. vii., p. 156.)

Mr. Thompson remarks on the conduct of McClure and his soldiers, even before the burning of the town of Newark: "The American army had no sooner taken up a position in front of Fort George, than the foraging parties, or rather marauders, commenced a systematic course of plunder upon the defenceless inhabitants within the vicinity of their camp, most of whom, at the time, consisted of women and children; even amongst the general officers acts of pillage were perpetrated, that, had such occurred with private soldiers in the British army, would have stamped a stigma on the character of the British, in the eyes of America, for which no course of conduct which they could ever after have pursued would have sufficiently atoned." (War of 1812, Chap. xxix., pp. 227, 228.)