Produced by Jane Hyland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE Defence of Stonington (CONNECTICUT) AGAINST A BRITISH SQUADRON, AUGUST 9TH TO 12TH, 1814. "Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona." HARTFORD: 1864. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE COPIES PRINTED. FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION. [Transcriber's Note: the various spellings of Ramilies have been retained in the text. Similarly, some opening quotes are not always matched with closing quotes.] CONTENTS. INTRODUCTORY NOTE, page v RECORD OF THE EXTRAORDINARY ATTACK ON STONINGTON, 9 NAMES OF VOLUNTEERS, FROM THE CONNECTICUT GAZETTE, 20 MUSTER-ROLL OF CAPT. WM. POTTER'S COMPANY, 22 ACCOUNT OF THE ATTACK, PUBLISHED BY THE BOROUGH AUTHORITIES, 24 LETTER FROM CAPT. AMOS PALMER TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR, 33 EXTRACT FROM GEN. ROOT'S SPEECH IN CONGRESS, 1817, 37 THE BATTLE OF STONINGTON, BY PHILIP FRENEAU, 38 CELEBRATIONS OF THE ANNIVERSARY, 42 NOTES, 47 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The repulse of a British squadron, at Stonington, by a few undisciplined volunteers, having only two effective guns, imperfectly protected by a low earth-work,--and this repulse accomplished without the loss of a single life,--was not the least glorious achievement of the War of 1812-14. The fiftieth anniversary of the action is close at hand. Few who witnessed,--only three or four who participated in it, survive. In this day of great events, when armies and navies are gathered on a scale of magnitude of which our fathers never dreamed,--when from the heights of modern science, we look back to the guns and the ships of war of the last generation, as to the toys of childhood,--when we are in the very crisis of a war greater in itself, and waged for a grander issue, than the world has hitherto witnessed,--it is not surprising that so few find leisure or inclination to look from the present to the past, or to recall to memory the heroism of their fathers.