issues are decided. For, although on a small scale, the lakes were
oceans, and the forces which met on them were fleets; and as, on a
wider field and in more tremendous issues, the fleets of Great Britain
saved their country and determined the fortunes of Europe, so Perry
and McDonough averted from the United States, without further
fighting, a rectification of frontier--as it is euphemistically
styled,--the effecting of which is one of the most fruitful causes and
frequent results of war in every continent and at every period.

NOTE.--For the battle of Lake Erie, the most important original
data are the Court Martial upon Barclay (British Records
Office), and the Court of Inquiry held at Elliott's request, in
April, 1815. The proceedings and testimony of the latter are
published in the appendix to a "Biographical Notice of Commodore
Jesse D. Elliott," by Russell Jarvis, Philadelphia, 1835.
Perry's Report of the battle, Sept. 13, 1813, is in American
State Papers, Naval Affairs, vol. i. p. 295. Barclay's report is
in Naval Chronicle, vol. xxxi. pp. 250-253, as well as in the
record of the Court. Jarvis, and Mackenzie's Life of Perry (5th
edition), give a large number of affidavits by officers present
in the engagement, and Mackenzie gives also a copy of the
charges preferred by Perry in 1818 against Elliott. In the
controversy which arose over the battle, Mackenzie, in the
appendix to the fifth edition of Perry's Life, Duer, and Tristam
Burges, Battle of Lake Erie (Boston, 1839), are the principal
champions on Perry's side; Jarvis (as above) and J. Fenimore
Cooper, Battle of Lake Erie, on the side of Elliott; but the
latter himself published several vindications of his conduct.
The usual naval histories, American and British, may be
consulted, and there are also incidental mentions and reports in
Niles' Register and the British Naval Chronicle, which will be
found useful.

FOOTNOTES:

[74] Captains' Letters, Navy Department MSS.

[75] Mackenzie's Life of Perry, vol. i. p. 166.

[76] Mackenzie's Life of Perry, vol. i. p. 186.

[77] Perry to the Secretary of the Navy, Aug. 10, 1813. Mackenzie's Life
of Perry, vol. i. p. 191.

[78] Secretary's Letters, Aug. 18, 1813. Navy Department MSS.

[79] Otherwise known by the name of the River Raisin. Ante, vol. i. p.
370.

[80] The data of this paragraph are taken from the Repor