Fail to understand "presenting to the sympathy of their chief captives "

Either there is a transcription error in the text, or Mr. Madison was so carried away with the perception of the excellence of his rhetoric, that he allowed that gaffe to stand uncorrected. It certainly means nothing to me.

　　Is it possible that we guess the true meaning correctly by deduction, Set?

Oristar already asked this question in June but does not appear happy with the answers that he got then.

I see it this way:

Extortion is the crime or practice of forcing someone to do something e.g. pay money by unfair means such as force or threats.

In this case the British are alleged by Madison (the commander-in-chief of the losing side) to have resorted, in the then recent war of 1812, to the unfair and damned unsporting tactic of obtaining victory over the American troops they were fighting, not by simple force of arms (the American troop's "valor" is said to be "unconquerable") but rather by presenting to the sympathy of their chief [exploiting their commander's humanity by showing him] captive American soldiers awaiting massacre by the Native Americans fighting with them (the British).

In other words, "We lost because we were decent fellows and the British were wily scoundrels who played dirty."

A little punctuation would not have gone amiss:

British commanders have extorted victory over the unconquerable valor of our troops, by presenting to the sympathy of their chief, captives awaiting massacre from their savage associates.

Thank you.
I got it clearer now.

But I'm confused by the phrase " presenting to the sympathy." How about rewriting it with another words with the same meaning? (Especially: what does "present to" mean?

The verb to present accent on 2nd syllable "preSENT" has at least these meanings:

1. to introduce (a person) to another, esp to someone of higher rank
2. to introduce to the public: to present a play
3. to introduce and compere (a radio or television show)
4. to show; exhibit: he presented a brave face to the world
5. to put forward; submit: she presented a proposal for a new book
6. to bring or suggest to the mind: to present a problem
7. to give or award: to present a prize
8. to endow with or as if with a gift or award: to present a university with a foundation scholarship
9. to offer formally: to present one's compliments
10. to offer or hand over for action or settlement: to present a bill
11. to represent or depict in a particular manner: the actor presented Hamlet as a very young man
12. to salute someone with (one's weapon) (usually in the phrase present arms)
13. to aim or point (a weapon)
14. to nominate (a clergyman) to a bishop for institution to a benefice in his diocese
15. to lay (a charge, etc) before a court, magistrate, etc, for consideration or trial
16. to bring a formal charge or accusation against (a person); indict
17. chiefly (US) (of a grand jury) to take notice of (an offence) from personal knowledge or observation, before any bill of indictment has been drawn up
18. (intr) med to seek treatment for a particular symptom or problem: she presented with postnatal depression
19. informal (intr) to produce a favourable, etc impression: she presents well in public; he presents as harmless but has poisoned his family
20. present oneself to appear, esp at a specific time and place.

The British presented to [showed] an American commander captives awaiting massacre by "savages" (Native Americans) and hoped that this would affect his tactical judgement because of his sympathy for their plight.

Using hostages as human shields and bargaining chips is as old as war itself. I suspect that the Native Americans may have been using their captives as "human shields". This was a common tactic. They used captured black slaves in this way during the battle of Fort Mims, but in vain - the attacking Americans just killed all the slaves. However, I daresay they would have hesitated if they had been white men.

Thank you.



I think "presented" means "showed," not "presented to" meaning "showed."
"To the sympathy" is an adverbial structure.
In addiction, one of the reasons that confused me is that I have seen "their chief captive" as one. And actually "their chief" refers to "their commander" (Madison?)?

No, I was not mistaken. "Present to" can mean "show to", which is often shortened to just "show".



Just say no to drugs! You meant "addition" I think.



Possibly, more likely a commander on the battlefield.



[/quote]

Your knee-jerk, irrational, jingoistic chauvinism never fails to amuse. The Royal Navy lost every single-ship action to the United States Navy with the single except of U.S.S. Chesapeake versus HMS Shannon. The American commader, Lawrence, was killed, while Philip Broke, the commander of Shannon (about the only decent frigate commander and crew your boys had in that war) was so badly wounded, that he was invalided for the rest of the war. Although he retired an Admiral (inevitable for anyone reaching the rank of Post Captain who did not die in the interim), he never commanded in battle again. When HMS Cyane with a post-ship consort attempted to set about USS Constitution, she turned, engaged Cyane, and while Cyane's consort fled, took her a prize. She then made all sail to capture the consort, HMS Levant, which was soon obliged to strike to her.

The fortunes of war on land swayed back and forth, but the English invasion of Michigan was driven out, and the Americans penetrated Upper Canada on the west to a distance of one hundred miles--only returning to the United States when their commander died of natural causes. The American invasion of the Niagara peninsula (Upper Canada on the east) was sufficiently successful that England only got the territory back as a result of the peace negotiations. When a force of Wellington's peninsular veterans landed and attempted to take New Orleans, they were shattered by the American defense, and their commander killed.

The war started because of the arrogant and high handed behavior of your ministry with their order in council authorizing Royal Navy vessels to stop and search American ships for "contraband," and to press seamen from those vessels. Even that dim-witted crew realized their error, and as the American ship which carried the formal news of Madison's declaration of war to London sailed east, she was passed by an English ship bearing the ministry's offer to negotiate the terms of the order in council. It was too late, though. The peace negotiations resulted not only in rescinding the order in council, but the release and repatriation of more than 2000 sailors held at Dartmoor who had refused to serve against the United States Navy. All English troops were withdrawn from American territory, including Florida, which the English had illegally held since the end of the revolution. (It was from Florida that English officers had provided guns and rum to the Indians, instigating the Creek War of 1813, which resulted in disaster for the Indians, a disaster which culminated in the Trail of Tears, when their conqueror, Andrew Jackson, was President.)

It that's winning, your nation should thank their lucky stars they didn't lose that war.

By the way, there are numerous English sources for the slaughter of prisoners at Detroit by Isaac Brock's Indian allies after the Americans had surrendered at discretion and for terms. Flannel mouth.

Superior entertainment. I put in a dime, and out came a whole shower of Hostess Twinkies!

Playing with the Royal Navy certainly was superior entertainment for the United States Navy. Thanks for all suckers you sent our way.

Or was it ****? Hard to tell the difference.

I've failed to understand, Set:

1) post-ship consort = a ship served as the "other half" of the capital ship?
2) set about = attack?
3) strike to = strike ?

The captain of a ship in a battle signified surrender by hauling down the flag ("striking his colours")

Still haven't got clue to understand them.

1.

(a) Post ship was a designation used in the Royal Navy during the Age of Sail to describe a ship of the sixth-rate* that was smaller than a frigate (in practice, carrying fewer than 28 guns), but by virtue of being a rated ship (i.e. having at least 20 guns), had to have as its captain a "post captain" rather than a lieutenant or commander. Thus ships with 20 to 26 guns were post ships, though this situation changed after 1817.

* see here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rating_system_of_the_Royal_Navy

(b) A consort is a companion or escort. The post-ship, HMS Levant, was consort or escort to HMS Cyane.

2. Set about indeed means "attack"

3. I already explained the meaning of "strike" in this context.

Thank you.

Except the third.

Do you mean it is a similar situation as the case of "present to"?

To strike in naval terms means to lower one's national flag, called "to strike one's colors," as a sign of surrender.

In the Royal Navy, there were three ranks of commissioned officer: Lieutenant, Post Captain and Admiral. To become a lieutenant, one was obliged to serve a course of instruction as a midshipman on board an armed vessel of the fleet. When a midshipman was certified by his captain to have completed the requisite course of instruction, he was then entitled to sit an examination (almost invariably oral) for his commission. If he passed the examination, renounced the Pope and acknowledged the supremecy of the Church of England, he would be granted a commission as a Lieutenant. This didn't mean he would have a job, but if a position were available, he could be assigned to a ship as one of the lieutenants, one of the commissioned officers. He might serve years as a lieutenant before being promoted. If he were given the command of any ship, he would have the courtesy title of captain, but not the rank. His rank would be Master and Commander. Therefore, the distinction of Post Captain was used--this means a man who has been promoted from lieutenant to captain, and who is a captain whether he commands a vessel or not, whether he is at sea or on shore--he holds the "post" of captain.

There were only two classes of warship in the Royal Navy. Those were ships and sloops. A ship must have three masts, and she must be square-rigged (meaning the principle sails on the three masts are, roughly speaking, square in shape, although actually, they were trapezoids), and she must rate 20 guns or more. The rating of a ship doesn't mean that that is the number of guns she carries; it means that is the number of guns she is designed to carry. Usually, ships carried more--some times far more--than the number of guns for which they were rated.

It is at that point that things get complicated. Any armed ship which doesn't have three masts, or is not square-rigged, or does not rate 20 guns or more, is a sloop. So, HMS can mean His (or Her) Majesty's Ship, or His Majesty's Sloop. But if an officer who is not a Post Captain is given command of a ship, she becomes a sloop (for example, a ship might be captured in combat, and the command of her given to a lieutenant until such time as she can sail to a friendly port--in that case, she ceases to be described as a ship, and is described as a sloop, no matter how she is rigged and no matter how many guns she rates). At the same time, if the requirements of the service call for a Post Captain to command a vessel which would otherwise not be considered a ship, but a sloop, as soon as the Post Captain takes command, she ceases to be a sloop and becomes a ship. I hope that you are now sufficiently confused.

Any officer who attains the rank of Post Captain, and who is not subsequently dismissed from his post, is put on a list by seniority, and so long as he is not killed and does not die in the interim, he will eventually be promoted to the rank of Admiral. This will happen even if, after being promoted Post Captain, he never serves on board a ship again. This will happen, for example, with a Post Captain who spends his entire career commanding the port facilities of a Royal Navy base. Such an admiral was known as a "yellow admiral." Otherwise, the fleet was considered to be divided into three adminisrative squadrons, which had absolutely no basis in reality. These were the blue, white and red. A Rear Admiral (the lowest rank of admiral) of the blue was the lowest ranking admiral, a rear admiral of the white one step higher, and rear admiral of the red one step higher yet. This held for Vice Admirals and Admirals, too. The single Admiral of the Red (there could only be one) was known as the Admiral of the Fleet, and was the highest ranking admiral.

In practice, this could create problems. The entire purpose was to assure two conflicting principles of military rank. By making midshipmen pass an examination to become a lieutenant, and making the pomotion to Post Captain on merit, the point was to assure that commissioned officers were competent. At the same time, having achieved post rank, a Captain was assured of becoming an admiral, simply by living long enough. But an officer who had captured an enemy ship in battle, and who had a first lieutenant he didn't want, would probably give that man command of the captured ship and send him off with dispatches for the admiralty. This gave the captain the opportunity to promote a lieutenant he considered more worthy, and got rid of a problem for him. But this simply passed the problem off on the office of the Admiralty. By immemorial custom of the service, a lieutenant given command of a captured post ship and sent home with dispatches would be "given his step," promoted to Post Captain and given command of a post ship. If he was not particularly competent (the reason his commander has sent him off in the first place), then the Navy had to find an excuse to lay the ship up "in ordinary" (temporarily take the ship out of service), so the inefficient captain could be turned ashore.

At the higher ranks, it got even worse, since there could only be a number of admirals which corresponded to the number of squadrons, or posts on shore, which were available. That means that Post Captains would "stack up" waiting for admirals to die, or to be "yellowed," which is to say, forced to retire--that was a difficult practice, since to create a yellow admiral, you had to have cause to so publicly object to his service. Provo Wallace, by the simple process of seniority, became Admiral of the Red, which is to say, Admiral of the Fleet, the highest ranking admiral of the Royal Navy. Wallace was born in 1791, and followed an ordinary career. Earlier, i wrote about the fight between USS Chesapeake and HMS Shannon during the war of 1812. Wallis was the seconed lieutenant of Shannon, and when Captain Broke was so severely wounded, and the first lieutenant killed, Wallis commanded Shannon until he could sail her, along with her prize, Chesapeake, to Halifax, Nova Scotia (an important seaport in Canada, it was also Wallis' birthplace). Because of a generous impulse on the part of Parliament, a law had been passed that any officer who commanded a ship during the "French War" would remain on the active list for the rest of his life. Wallis' brief command of Shannon qualified him. Therefore, in 1877, at the age 86, he succeeded to the rank Admiral of the Red (Admiral of the Fleet) when the previous incumbent died. He remained Admiral of the Fleet for 24 years--until he died at the age of 100 in 1892--and all because he had commanded Shannon for the four or five days it took to bring her into Halifax. The entire Navy List was "clogged" with Post Captains and lesser Admirals waiting for Wallis to die, something about which he was unobliging.

The Japanese adopted the same system for the Imperial Navy. Some day i'll explain to you why that made the attack on Pearl Harbor less than the success it ought to have been.