Beschreibung:

AMERICAN REVOLUTION -- BATTLE OF VALCOUR ISLAND]. TATHAM, WILLIAM. Autograph letter signed to Paul Hamilton, Secretary of the Navy, 27 July 1812. 1½ pages, 4to, integral address leaf . LESSONS FROM THE REVOLUTION FOR THE WAR OF 1812. A month after the American declaration of war on Britian, Tatham sends Secretary of the Navy Hamilton, "a sketch [not present] of a smart little affair in the very dawn of American independence," in order to demonstrate that "this position in Lake Champlain has...been deemed an important one in the Naval tactics of our interior navigation." Commenting on the Battle of Valcour Island (in which Benedict Arnold's flotilla contested passage of Lake Champlain with a superior British naval force in October 1776), Tatham observes that "if the Pass & Harbour between Valcour and the main[land] had been fortified...Arnold would not have been defeated." Tatham observes that "courage & conduct is conspicuous in the disposition, & event on both sides," and concludes that the lesson for the American Navy of 1812, is that "if the British still maintain the ports of St. Johns & Isle au Noix, or if they either have a controuling Naval force...on that river, or are in a position to build & man such, they may possibly give us trouble." Tatham proved prophetic, and in September 1814 a strong British flotilla on Lake Champlain was soundly defeated by an American fleet under Thomas MacDonough.