The defeat, which was neither attributable to want of foresight, to incapacity, of any sort, or to lack of bravery, however humiliating it was, but entirely to the accident which delayed a night attack until daybreak, was in some degree compensated for by the capture of Fort Boyer, near Mobile, commanding one of the mouths of the Mississippi. Fort Boyer was attacked by the land and sea forces on the 12th of February, and, with its garrison of 360 men and 22 guns, was compelled to yield, when further operations were stayed by the receipt, on the very next day, of intelligence that peace between Great Britain and the United States had been concluded at Ghent. It is asserted, with regard to the storming of New Orleans, that Pakenham displayed imprudent hardihood, in the attempt to achieve by force, what might have been gained by combination; and that the whole mischief might have been avoided by throwing the whole troops instead of only Thornton's division, on the right bank of the river, and so have rendered unavailing all Jackson's formidable arrangements. Pakenham's disaster was, however, not the result of imprudent hardihood, but purely the result of accident in the time of attack, and in the neglect of Colonel Mullens, to whom the duty of bringing up the fascines and ladders was entrusted. Pakenham well considered the difficulties which he had to encounter. He would have carried the American entrenchments by a _coup de main_, had he not perceived that the operation would have been extremely hazardous. He would have sat down before the city and have advanced under cover of first one parallel and then another, had he not perceived that as he approached so the enemy could have retired within successive lines of entrenchment. Nay, he saw that the most probable mode of speedy and successful assault was by a simultaneous attack upon the enemy during the night, in the front and in the rear of their intrenched lines. He further knew that the attack in rear would depend for success, in a very great measure, upon the skill and intrepidity of the officer entrusted with its execution, and he accordingly selected an officer possessed of both these essentials in the person of Colonel Thornton. And with respect to the effect of having landed his whole force, on the right bank of the river, where success, though too late, did attend the efforts of Thornton, it is to be remembered that Colonel Dixon reported to General Lambert, when the battery on that side was in Thornton's possession, that it could not be retained even, without more men than Lambert could spare to re-inforce him. The defeat at New Orleans was only humiliating to Great Britain in the result, not in the conception, and it cannot fairly be laid to the charge of Pakenham that he only exhibited heroic valour, coupled with imprudent hardihood, or that he despised his enemy.