Independent:
Nearly two hundred years after the almost forgotten War of 1812 between Britain and the then fledgling United States, a new skirmish has broken out over the fate of a British warship wrecked off the coast of Nova Scotia and believed to contain precious artefacts hauled from the sacked White House in Washington.
American divers sparked the dispute after they recently located the wreck of what many believe is HMS Fantome, a British Navy brig that led a convoy of ships from Washington to Halifax after British troops stormed the American capital and burned down the White House.
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The ships went down during a vicious storm on 24 November 1814, only weeks after the British burned the White House. They were bound for what was then the most important garrison in British North America.
What treasures lay in the hold has never been established, but it is believed that gold was among them. Adding to the mystery, Mr Chisolm last week told The Independent on Sunday that someone had stolen the relevant documents in the Nova Scotian archives that might have answered that and many other questions about the Fantome.
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The existing White House was built to replace the one that the British set alight. Only two items were saved for certain from the conflagration, according to historians. One was a painting of George Washington rescued by the then First Lady, Dolly Madison. The other was a jewellery box given to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 by a Canadian who said that one of his forebears had taken it from Washington.
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