From an American point of view this expedition against New Orleans was infamous, for the reason that ministers representing both nations were negotiating a treaty of peace at Ghent when the order for the attack was issued. As one reads of the strength of the force sent to accomplish this work, it seems invincible. “A great fleet of war-vessels--ships-of-the-line, frigates, and sloops--under Admiral Cochrane was convoying a still larger fleet of troop-ships, with some ten thousand fighting men, chiefly the fierce and hardy veterans of the Peninsula War, who had been trained for seven years in the stern school of the Iron Duke, and who were now led by one of the bravest and ablest of all Wellington’s brave and able lieutenants, Sir Edward Packenham.” [Illustration: Sir Edward Michael Packenham. _From an etching by Rosenthal of a print in the collection of Mr. Clarence S. Bement._] Favored by wind and weather, the leaders of this fleet--the line-of-battle ships and frigates--reached the Chandeleur Islands on December 8, 1814, and came to anchor. They reviewed the ground that lay between them and the city they intended to take, and they found that the current of the great river was too strong for their wind-borne ships. So another, and apparently an easier, route was chosen--the route through the inlets and bayous of which the breadth of water called Lake Borgne was the most conspicuous feature. It was a landlocked route with a sufficient depth of water to float boats and transports, and the sole obstruction that the Americans could offer to the mighty host of invaders was a fleet of five gun-boats and two tiny tenders, one a schooner and one a sloop, that together could offer a broadside of fourteen guns, including a number of insignificant (short) six-pounders, the whole throwing two hundred and twelve pounds of metal, and manned by one hundred and ninety-four men, all told, under the command of Lieutenant Thomas ap Catesby Jones. Very quickly the British admiral discovered these seven boats, and on December 12th sent a force to destroy them. With the emphatic assertion of the favorite British historian James in mind--the assertion that “the British, when engaged in expeditions of this nature, always rest their hopes of success upon valor rather than on numbers”--what does the uninformed reader suppose was the strength of this expedition? Whatever the supposition may be, the fact is that even James admits that it included no less than forty-two launches, all armed with carronades, chiefly twenty-four and eighteen-pounders, but some carrying twelve-pounders--forty-two launches, carrying guns that threw not less than seven hundred and fifty-eight pounds of shot at a single discharge, and _manned by nine hundred and eighty men picked from among the ships of the squadron_.