On the 16th of August, some American troops and Indians from Detroit surprised the settlement of Port Talbot, where they committed the most atrocious acts of violence, leaving upwards of 234 men, women and children in a state of nakedness and want. [Illustration: BURNING OF JAY IN EFFIGY. For signing the Treaty of 1797 Jay was burned in effigy. Hamilton was stoned and the British Minister at Philadelphia insulted.] On the 20th of December, a second excursion was made by the garrison of Detroit, spreading fire and pillage through the settlements of Upper Canada. Early in November, General McArthur, with a large body of mounted Kentuckians and Indians, made a rapid march through the western part of the London districts, burning all the mills, destroying provisions and living upon the inhabitants. Other atrocities committed by the American troops, among them the wanton destruction of a tribe of Indians, unarmed and helpless, are detailed by Dr. Strachan. He adds, addressing Jefferson: "This brief account of the conduct of your government and army will fill the world with astonishment at the forbearance of Great Britain." After two years and a half had been expended in vain and puerile attacks on the "handful of soldiers" with which Great Britain was able to resist its invasion, combined with such assistance as the patriotic Canadians were able to afford, it was found that not only Canada could not be conquered, but that much of the territory of the United States had passed into the hands of the enemy, with not one foot of that enemy's territory in their own hands to compensate for the loss. When the arms of the United States had suffered many reverses and it became plain that they must accept the best terms from Great Britain that they could procure, John Adams declared that he "would continue the war forever rather than surrender one iota of the fisheries as established by the third article of the treaty of 1783." He boasted that he had saved the fishermen in that year, and now in 1814 he learned with dismay that they were again lost to his country, their relinquishment being one of the terms insisted on by the British commission as the price of peace. The Federalists also were not easily satisfied. They admitted that peace was a happy escape for a country with a bankrupt treasury, and all resources dissipated. "But what," they asked, "have we gained by a war provoked and entered into by you with such a flourish of trumpets? Where are your 'sailors' rights?' Where is the indemnity for our impressed seamen? How about the paper blockade? The advantages you promised us we have not obtained. But we have lost nothing? Have we not? What about Grand Manan and Moose Island and the fisheries and our West Indian commerce?" So severely did Boston suffer that there were sixty vessels captured at the entrance to the harbor by one small fishing smack of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, cruising in Massachusetts Bay.