Burning of York
Between April 28 and 30, American troops carried out many acts of plunder. Some of them set fire to the buildings of the Legislative Assembly. It was alleged that the American troops had found a scalp there, though folklore had it that the "scalp" was actually the Speaker's wig. The Printing Office, used for publishing official documents as well as newspapers, was vandalized and the printing press was smashed. Other Americans looted empty houses on the pretext that their absent owners were militia who had not given their parole as required by the articles of capitulation. The homes of Canadians connected with the Indians, including that of James Givins, were also looted regardless of their owners' status.
Dearborn emphatically denied giving orders for any buildings to be destroyed and deplored the worst of the atrocities in his letters, but he was nonetheless unable or unwilling to rein in his soldiers. Sheaffe was later to allege that local settlers had unlawfully come into possession of Government-owned farming tools or other stores looted and discarded by the Americans, and demanded that they be handed back.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of York
Famous quotes containing the words burning and/or york:
“The rushing Pequod, freighted with savages, laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her monomaniac commander’s soul.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“New York has her wilderness within her own borders; and though the sailors of Europe are familiar with the soundings of her Hudson, and Fulton long since invented the steamboat on its waters, an Indian is still necessary to guide her scientific men to its headwaters in the Adirondack country.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)