[Letter from Washington] | Washington Is Burning, by Andrew Cockburn | Harper's Magazine:
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.
Portrait of Sir George Cockburn © De Agostini Picture Library/Bridgeman Images
For myself, the words always evoke a glow of family pride, because Key’s malign desire that fleeing slaves should find no refuge was directly inspired by the actions of my distinguished relative Admiral Sir George Cockburn of the Royal Navy. Two hundred years ago this August, he fought his way to the White House at the head of an army partly composed of slaves he had freed, armed, and trained and torched the place, along with the Capitol and much of official Washington. In the course of a two-year campaign, he rescued as many as 6,000 slaves
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