Note 205 — THE WAR OF 1812
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Washington was taken by the British, August 24, 1814. "It was only the vandalism of the British soldiers and sailors, incited by Cockburn and ill restrained by Ross, that made this incursion at once memorable and infamous. To public edifices, having no immediate relation to the war, the torch was applied; to the unfinished Capitol (which contained the library of Congress); the President's house, the Treasury,—to all the government buildings in fact, except the Patent Office, besides numerous private dwellings about Capitol Hill."—Schouler's History of the United States.
"All this was the more shameful because done under strict orders from home."—Green's History of the English People.