ussunitedstates

British Lion from quarterdeck of MACEDONIAN, 1812 (LOC)

from The Library of Congress

• Art Siegel said:

  LOC,caption on negative is "Macedonian". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Macedonian HMS Macedonian was a 38-gun frigate in the Royal Navy, launched in 1810, but later captured by the USS United States during the War of 1812.

• Anne (LOC P&P) said:

  artolog: You are correct, the caption on the negative is "Macedonian." We'll fix this next time we update.

• Art Siegel said:

  BBC.COM just ran a color photo of this, saying "The destruction of Washington was in retaliation for an earlier US attack on the Parliament of Lower Canada at York (now Toronto). The US also looted, taking a royal standard, the first Mace of Ontario, a golden staff used by Upper Canada's Parliament, and a lion statuette, carved out of wood and painted gold.
  
  Today, the standard and lion are just two of the hundreds of "trophies of war" on display at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
  
  A statue of a lion
  The wooden lion taken by the US in April 1813 from the Legislature of Upper Canada in York (now Toronto)"
  
  So perhaps this is something different?
  www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28833238
  
  Though perhaps BBC has it wrong, as the 1891 NYT article also describes the lion statue:
  query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9807EFD81239E0...
  
  And see

• Art Siegel said:

  A seemingly authoritative article, which even includes a USNA accession number, describes this as coming from the looting of Canada's parliament building: "Public Trophies, Private Plunder The American Harvest after the Battle at York by Robert Malcomson Eleven lions left York with the Americans when Commodore Isaac Chauncey’s squadron finally sailed away, days after the 27 April 1813 capture of the province’s capital. One stood alone while the others were rampant on colourful fields. The lions were among the trophies of war taken by the victorious American expedition. Who picked them up and delivered them to their senior officers has yet to come to light. And any other treasures that disappeared during the plundering of the town have not been discovered. As it is, only some of the trophies remain in existence. The lonely lion still stands alone. It is a wooden carving, painted in gold. Its place was probably on top of a lofty canopy above the speaker’s dais in Upper Canada’s Legislative Assembly at the eastern end of York. Along with other items, it was shipped to Washington for deposit in ‘the archives.’ At some point in the 1800s officials moved it to the institution that evolved into the United States Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis, Maryland. " www.fortyork.ca/images/newsletters/fife-and-drum-2008/fif...