Pinkney wrote home that a verbal agreement conformable to his
instructions had been reached concerning the "Chesapeake," and that he
was daily expecting a written overture embodying the terms. August 14
this had not been received,--to his great surprise, for Wellesley's
manner had shown every disposition to accommodate. Upon this situation
supervened Cadore's declaration of the revocation of the French
Decrees, Pinkney's acceptance of the fact as indisputable, and his
urgency to obtain from the British Government a corresponding measure
in the repeal of the Orders. Through all ran the same procrastination,
issuing in entire inaction.

Pinkney's correspondence shows a man diplomatically self-controlled
and patient, though keenly sensible to the indignity of unwarrantable
delays. The rough speaking of his mind concerning the Orders in
Council, in his letter of December 10, suggests no loss of temper, but
a deliberate letting himself go. There appeared to him now no
necessity for further endurance. To Wellesley's rejoinder of December
29 he sent an answer on January 14, 1811, "written," he said, "under
the pressure of indisposition, and the influence of more indignation
than could well be suppressed."[343] The questions at issue were again
trenchantly discussed, but therewith he brought to an end his
functions as minister of the United States. Under the same date, but
by separate letter, he wrote that as no steps had been taken to
replace Jackson by an envoy of equal rank, his instructions imposed on
him the duty of informing his lordship that the Government of the
United States could not continue to be represented in England by a
minister plenipotentiary. Owing to the insanity of the King, and the
delays incident to the institution of a regency, his audience of leave
was delayed to February 28; and it is a noticeable coincidence that
the day of this formal diplomatic act was also that upon which the
Non-Intercourse Bill against Great Britain passed the House of
Representatives. In the course of the spring Pinkney embarked in the
frigate "Essex" for the United States. He had no successor until after
the War of 1812, and the Non-Intercourse Act remained in vigor to the
day of hostilities.

On February 15, a month after Pinkney's notification of his intended
departure, Wellesley wrote him that the Prince Regent, whose authority
as such dated only from February 5, had appointed Mr. Augustus J.
Foster minister at Washington. The delay had been caused in the first
instance, "as I stated to you repeatedly," by the wish to make an
appointment satisfactory to the United States, and afterwards by the
state of his Majesty's Government; the regal function having been in
abeyance until the King's incapacity was remedied by the institution
of the Regent. Wellesley suggested the possibility of Pinkney
reconsidering his decision, the ground for which was thus removed; but
the minister demurred. He replied that he inferred, from Wellesley's
letter, that the British Government by this appointment signified its
intention of conceding the demands of the United States; that the
Orders in Council and blockade of May, 1806, would be annulled;
without this a beneficial effect was not to be expected. Wellesley
replied that no change of system was intended unless France revoked
her Decrees. The effect of this correspondence, therefore, was simply
to place Pinkney's departure upon the same ground as the new
Non-Intercourse Act against Great Britain.

Mr. Augustus John Foster was still a very young man, just thirty-one.
He had but recently returned from the position of minister to Sweden,
the duties of which he had discharged[344] during a year very critical
for the fortunes of that country, and in the event for Napoleon and
Europe. Upon his new mission Wellesley gave him a long letter of
instructions,[345] in which he dealt elaborately with the whole course
of events connected with the Orders in Council and Bonaparte's Decree,
especially as connected with America. In this occurs a concise and
lucid summary of the British policy, which is worth quoting. "From
this view of the origin of the Orders in Council, you will perceive
that the object of our system was not to crush the trade of the
continent, but to counteract an attempt to crush British trade; that
we have endeavored to permit the continent to receive as large a
portion of commerce as might be practicable through Great Britain, and
that all our subsequent regulations, and every modification of the
system, by new orders, or modes of granting or withholding licenses,
have been calculated for _the purpose of encouraging the trade of
neutrals through Great Britain_,[346] whenever such encouragement
might appear advantageous to the general interests of commerce and
consistent with the public safety of the nation,--the preservation of
which is the primary object of all national councils, and the
paramount duty of the Executive power."

In brief, the plea was that Bonaparte by armed constraint had forced
the continent into a league to destroy Great Britain through her
trade; that there was cause to fear these measures would succeed, if
not counteracted; that retaliation by similar measures was therefore
demanded by the safety of the state; and that the method adopted was
retaliation, so modified as to produce the least possible evil to
others concerned. It was admitted and deplored that prohibition of
direct trade with the ports of the league injuriously affected the
United States. That this was illegal, judged by the law of nations,
was also admitted; but it was justified by the natural right of
retaliation. Wellesley scouted the view, pertinaciously urged by the
American Government, that the exclusion of British commerce from
neutral continental ports by the Continental System was a mere
municipal regulation, which the United States could not resist.
Municipal regulation was merely the cloak, beneath which France
concealed her military coercion of states helpless against her policy.
"The pretext of municipal right, under which the violence of the enemy
is now exercised against neutral commerce in every part of the
continent, will not be admitted by Great Britain; nor can we ever deem
the repeal of the French Decrees to be effectual, until neutral
commerce shall be restored to the conditions in which it stood,
previously to the commencement of the French system of commercial
warfare, as promulgated in the Decrees."

Foster's mission was to urge these arguments, and to induce the repeal
of the Non-Intercourse law against Great Britain, as partial between
the two belligerents; who, if offenders against accepted law, were in
that offenders equally. The United States was urged not thus to join
Napoleon's league against Great Britain, from which indeed, if so
supported, the direst distress must arise. It is needless to pursue
the correspondence which ensued with Monroe, now Secretary of State.
By Madison's proclamation, and the passage of the Non-Intercourse Act
of March 2, 1811, the American Government was irretrievably committed
to the contention that France had so revoked her Decrees as to
constitute an obligation upon Great Britain and upon the United
States. To admit mistake, even to one's self, in so important a step,
probably passes diplomatic candor, and especially after the blunder in
Erskine's case. Yet, even admitting the adequacy of Champagny's
letter, the Decrees were not revoked; seizures were still made under
them. In November, 1811, Monroe had to write to Barlow, now American
minister to France, "It is not sufficient that it should appear that
the French Decrees are repealed, in the _final decision_ of a cause
brought _before a French tribunal_. An active prohibitory policy
should be adopted _to prevent seizures_ on the principle."[347] This
was in the midst of his correspondence with Foster. The two disputants
threshed over and over again the particulars of the controversy, but
nothing new was adduced by either.[348] Conditions were hopeless, and
war assured, even when Foster arrived in Washington, in June, 1811.

One thing, however, was finally settled. In behalf of his Government,
in reparation for the "Chesapeake" affair, Foster repeated the
previous disavowal of Berkeley's action, and his consequent recall;
and offered to restore to the ship herself the survivors of the men
taken from her. Pecuniary provision for those who had suffered in the
action, or for their families, was also tendered. The propositions
were accepted, while denying the adequacy of Berkeley's removal from
one command to another. The men were brought to Boston harbor, and
there formally given up to the "Chesapeake."

Tardy and insufficient as was this atonement, it was further delayed,
at the very moment of tendering, by an incident which may be said to
have derived directly from the original injury. In June, 1810, a
squadron of frigates and sloops had been constituted under Commodore
John Rodgers, to patrol the coast from the Capes of the Chesapeake
northward to the eastern limit of the United States. Its orders,
generally, were to defend from molestation by a foreign armed ship all
vessels of the United States within the marine league, seaward, to
which neutral jurisdiction was conceded by international law. Force
was to be used, if necessary, and, if the offender were a privateer,
or piratical, she was to be sent in. So weak and unready was the
nominal naval force of the United States, that piracy near her very
shores was apprehended; and concern was expressed in Congress
regarding vessels from Santo Domingo, thus converted into a kind of
local Barbary power. To these general instructions the Secretary of
the Navy attached a special reminder. Recalling the "Chesapeake"
affair, as a merely exaggerated instance of the contumely everywhere
heaped upon the American flag by both belligerents, he wrote: "What
has been perpetrated may be again attempted. It is therefore our duty
to be prepared and determined at every hazard to vindicate the injured
honor of our navy, and revive the drooping spirit of the nation. It is
expected that, while you conduct the force under your command
consistently with the principles of a strict and upright neutrality,
you are to maintain and support at every risk and cost the dignity of
our flag; and that, offering yourself no unjust aggression, you are to
submit to none, not even a menace or threat from a force not
materially your superior."

Under such reminiscences and such words, the ships' guns were like to
go off of themselves. It requires small imagination to picture the
feelings of naval officers in the years after the "Chesapeake's"
dishonor. In transmitting the orders to his captains, Rodgers added,
"Every man, woman, and child, in our country, will be active in
consigning our names to disgrace, and even the very vessels composing
our little navy to the ravages of the worms, or the detestable
transmigration to merchantmen, should we not fulfil their
expectations. I should consider the firing of a shot by a vessel of
war, of either nation, and particularly England, at one of our public
vessels, whilst the colors of her nation are flying on board of her,
as a menace of the grossest order, and in amount an insult which it
would be disgraceful not to resent by the return of two shot at least;
while should the shot strike, it ought to be considered an act of
hostility meriting chastisement to the utmost extent of all your
force."[349] The Secretary indorsed approval upon the copy of this
order forwarded to him. Rodgers' apprehension for the fate of the navy
reflected accurately the hostile views of leaders in the dominant
political party. Demoralized by the gunboat system, and disorganized
and browbeaten by the loud-mouthed disfavor of representative
Congressmen, the extinction of the service was not unnaturally
expected. Bainbridge, a captain of standing and merit, applied at this
time for a furlough to make a commercial voyage to China, owing to
straitened means. "I have hitherto refused such offers, on the
presumption that my country would require my services. That
presumption is removed, and even doubts entertained of the permanency
of our naval establishment."[350]

The following year, 1811, Rodgers' squadron and orders were continued.
The British admirals of adjacent stations, acting doubtless under
orders from home, enjoined great caution upon their ships of war in
approaching the American coast.[351] While set not to relax the Orders
in Council, the ministry did not wish war by gratuitous offence.
Cruising, however, continued, though charged with possibilities of
explosion. Under these circumstances Rodgers' ship, the "President"
frigate, and a British sloop of war, the "Little Belt," sighted each
other on May 16, 1811, fifty miles east of Cape Henry. Independent of
the general disposition of ships of war in troublous times to overhaul
and ascertain the business of any doubtful sail, Rodgers' orders
prescribed the capture of vessels of certain character, even outside
the three-mile limit; and, the "Little Belt" making sail from him, he
pursued. About 8 P.M., it being then full dark, the character and
force of the chase were still uncertain, and the vessels within range.
The two accounts of what followed differ diametrically; but the
British official version[352] is less exhaustive in matter and manner
than the American, which rests upon the sworn testimony of numerous
competent witnesses before a formal Court of Inquiry.[353] By this it
was found proved that the "Little Belt" fired the first gun, which by
Rodgers' statement cut away a backstay and went into the mainmast. The
batteries of both ships opened, and an engagement followed, lasting
twelve or fifteen minutes, during which the "Little Belt," hopelessly
inferior in force, was badly cut up, losing nine killed and
twenty-three wounded. Deplorable as was this result, and whatever
unreconciled doubts may be entertained by others than Americans as to
the blame, there can be no question that the affair was an accident,
unpremeditated. It was clearly in evidence that Rodgers had cautioned
his officers against any firing prior to orders. There was nothing of
the deliberate purpose characterizing the "Chesapeake" affair; yet Mr.
Foster, with the chariness which from first to last marked the British
handling of that business, withheld the reparation authorized by his
instructions until he had received a copy of the proceedings of the
court.

On July 24, 1811, the President summoned Congress to meet November 4,
a month before the usual time, in consequence of the state of foreign
affairs. His message spoke of ominous indications; of the inflexible
hostility evidenced by Great Britain in trampling upon rights which no
independent nation can relinquish; and recommended legislation for
increasing the military force. As regarded the navy, his words were
indefinite and vague, beyond suggesting the expediency of purchasing
materials for ship-building. The debates and action of Congress
reflected the tone of the Executive. War was anticipated as a matter
of course, and mentioned freely in speeches. That the regular army
should be enlarged, and dispositions made for more effective use of
the militia, was granted; the only dispute being about the amount of
development. In this the legislature exceeded the President's wishes,
which were understood, though not expressed in the message. Previous
Congresses had authorized an army of ten thousand, of which not more
than five thousand were then in the ranks. It was voted to complete
this; to add twenty-five thousand more regulars, and to provide for
fifty thousand volunteers. Doubts, based upon past experience, and
which proved well founded, were expressed as to the possibility of
raising so many regular troops, pledged for five years to submit to
the restrictions of military life. It was urged that, in the
economical conditions of the country, the class did not exist from
which such a force could be recruited.

This consideration did not apply to the navy. Seamen could be had
abundantly from the merchant shipping, the activities of which must
necessarily be much curtailed by war with a great naval power.
Nevertheless, the dominance of Jefferson, though in this particular
already shaken, remained upon the mass of his party. The new Secretary
of the Navy was from South Carolina, not reckoned among the commercial
states; but, however influenced, he ventured to intimate doubts as to
the gunboat system. Of one thing there was no doubt. On a gunboat a
gun cost twelve thousand dollars a year; the same on a frigate cost
but four thousand.[354] In the House of Representatives, the strongest
support to the development of the navy as a permanent force came from
the Secretary's state, backed by Henry Clay from Kentucky, and by the
commercial states; the leading representative of which, Josiah Quincy,
expressed, however, a certain diffidence, because in the embittered
politics of the day the mere fact of Federalist support tended rather
to damage the cause.

So much of the President's message as related to the navy--three
lines, wholly non-committal--was referred to a special committee. The
report[355] was made by Langdon Cheves of South Carolina, whose clear
and cogent exposition of the capabilities of the country and the
possibility of providing a force efficient against Great Britain,
under her existing embarrassments, was supported powerfully and
perspicuously by William Lowndes of the same state. The text for their
remarks was supplied by a sentence in the committee's report: "The
important engine of national strength and national security, which is
formed by a naval force, has hitherto been treated with a neglect
highly impolitic, or supported by a spirit so languid, as, while it
has preserved the existence of the establishment, has had the effect
of loading it with the imputations of wasteful expense, and
comparative inefficiency.... Such a course is impolitic under any
circumstances." This was the condemnation of the party's past. Clay
found his delight in dealing with some of the oratory, which on the
present occasion still sustained--and for the moment successfully
sustained--the prepossessions of Jefferson. Carthage, Rome, Venice,
Genoa, were republics with free institutions and great navies;
Carthage, Rome, Venice, and Genoa had lost their liberties, and their
national existence. Clearly navies, besides being very costly, were
fatal to constitutional freedom. Not in reply to such _non sequitur_,
but quickened by an insight which was to receive earlier vindication
than he could have anticipated, Quincy prophesied that, amid the
diverse and contrary interests of the several states, which the lack
of a common object of affection left still imperfectly unified in
sentiment, a glorious navy, identified with the whole country because
of its external action, yet local to no part, would supply a common
centre for the enthusiasm not yet inspired by the central government,
too closely associated for years back with a particular school of
extreme political thought, narrowly territorial and clannish in its
origin and manifestation. Within a twelvemonth, the "Constitution,"
most happily apt of all names ever given to a ship, became the
embodiment of this verified prediction.

The report of the committee was modest in its scope. "To the defence
of your ports and harbors, and the protection of your coasting trade,
should be confined the present objects and operations of any navy
which the United States can, or ought, to have." To this office it was
estimated that twelve ships of the line and twenty frigates would
suffice. Cheves and Lowndes were satisfied that such a fleet was
within the resources of the country; and to insure the fifteen
thousand seamen necessary to man it, they would be willing to limit
the number of privateers,--a most wholesome and necessary provision.
By a careful historical examination of Great Britain's past and
present exigencies, it was shown that such a force would most probably
keep clear the approaches to all American ports, the most critical
zone for shipping, whether inward or outward bound; because, to
counteract it, the enemy would have to employ numbers so largely
superior that they could not be spared from her European conflict. The
argument was sound; but unhappily Cheves, Lowndes, Clay, and Quincy
did not represent the spirit of the men who for ten years had ruled
the country and evolved the gunboat system. These, in their day of
power, not yet fully past, had neither maintained the fleet nor
accumulated material, and there was no seasoned timber to build with.
The Administration which expired in 1801 had left timber for six
74-gun ships, of which now remained only enough for four. The rest had
been wasted in gunboats, or otherwise. The committee therefore limited
its recommendations to building the frigates, for which it was
believed materials could be procured.

Even in this reduced form it proved impossible to overcome the
opposition to a navy as economically expensive and politically
dangerous. The question was amply debated; but as, on the one hand,
little doubt was felt about the rapid conquest of Canada by militia
and volunteers, so, on the other, the same disposition to trust to
extemporized irregular forces encouraged reliance simply upon
privateering. Private enterprise in such a cause undoubtedly has from
time to time attained marked results; but in general effect the method
is a wasteful expenditure of national resources, and, historically,
saps the strength of the regular navy. In the manning of inefficient
privateers--and the majority were inefficient and ineffective--were
thrown away resources of seamen which, in an adequate naval force,
organized and directed as it would have been by the admirable officers
of that period, could have accomplished vastly more in the annoyance
of British trade,--the one offensive naval undertaking left open to
the nation. Even with the assistance of the Federalists the provision
for the frigates could not be carried, though the majority was
narrow--62 to 59. The same fate befell the proposition to provide a
dockyard. All that could be had was an appropriation of six hundred
thousand dollars, distributed over three successive years, for buying
timber. These votes were taken January 27, 1812, in full expectation
of war, and only five months before it was declared.

Early in April, Congress, in secret session, passed an Act of Embargo
for ninety days, which became law on the fourth by the President's
signature. The motive was twofold: to retain at home the ships and
seamen of the nation, in anticipation of war, to keep them from
falling into the hands of the enemy; and also to prevent the carriage
of supplies indispensably necessary to the British armies in Spain.
Both objects were defeated by the action of Quincy, in conjunction
with Senator Lloyd of Massachusetts and Representative Emott of New
York. Learning that the President intended to recommend the embargo,
these gentlemen, as stated by Quincy on the floor of the House,
despatched at once to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, expresses
which left Washington March 31, the day before Madison's letter was
dated. Four or five days' respite was thus secured, and the whole
mercantile community set zealously to work to counteract the effects
of the measure. "Niles' Register," published in Baltimore, said:
"Drays were working night and day, from Tuesday night, March 31, and
continued their toil till Sunday morning, incessantly. In this
hurly-burly to palsy the arm of the Government all parties united. On
Sunday perhaps not twenty seamen, able to do duty, could be found in
all Baltimore." A New York paper is quoted as saying, "The property
could not have been moved off with greater expedition had the city
been enveloped in flames." From that port forty-eight vessels cleared;
from Baltimore thirty-one; Philadelphia and Alexandria in like
proportions. It was estimated that not less than two hundred thousand
barrels of flour, besides grain in other shapes, and provisions of all
kinds, to a total value of fifteen million dollars, were rushed out of
the country in those five days, when labor-saving appliances were
nearly unknown.[356]

Jonathan Russell, who was now _chargé d'affaires_ at London, having
been transferred from Paris upon the arrival of Armstrong's successor,
Joel Barlow, wrote home, "The great shipments of provisions, which
were hurried from America in expectation of the embargo, have given
the Peninsula a supply for about two months; and at the expiration of
that period the harvest in that region will furnish a stock for about
three months more.... The avidity discovered by our countrymen to
escape from the embargo, and the disregard of its policy, have
encouraged this Government to hope that supplies will still continue
to be received from the United States. The ship 'Lady Madison,' which
left Liverpool in March, has returned thither with a cargo taken in
off Sandy Hook without entering an American port. There are several
vessels now about leaving this country with the intention not only of
procuring a cargo in the same way, but of getting rid, illicitly, of
one they carry out."[357]

It was, indeed, a conspicuous instance of mercantile avidity, wholly
disregardful of patriotic considerations, such as is to be found in
all times and in all countries; strictly analogous to the constant
smuggling between France and Great Britain at this very time. Its
significance in the present case, however, is as marking the
widespread lack of a national patriotism, as distinct from purely
local advantage and personal interests, which unhappily characterized
Americans at this period. Of this Great Britain stood ready to avail
herself, by extending to the United States the system of licenses, by
which, combined with the Orders in Council, she was combating with a
large degree of success Napoleon's Continental System. She hoped, and
the sequel showed not unreasonably, that even during open hostilities
she could in the same manner thwart the United States in its efforts
to keep its own produce from her markets. Less than a fortnight after
the American Declaration of War was received, Russell, who had not yet
left England, wrote to the Secretary of State that the Board of Trade
had given notice that licenses would be granted for American vessels
to carry provisions from the United States to Cadiz and Lisbon, for
the term of eight months; and that a policy had been issued at Lloyds
to a New York firm, insuring flour from that port to the peninsula,
warranted free from British capture, and from capture or detention by
the Government of the United States.[358]

The British armies were thus nourished and dependent, both in Spain
and in Canada. The supplying of the latter scarcely fell short of
treason, and decisively affected the maintenance of the war in that
quarter. It is difficult to demonstrate a moral distinction between
what was done there, disregardful of national success, in shameful
support of the enemy, and the supplying of the peninsula; but an
intuitive sympathy extends to the latter a tolerance which the motives
of the individual agents probably do not deserve, and for which calm
reason cannot give a perfectly satisfactory account. But it was the
misfortune of American policy, as shaped by the Administration, that
it was committed to support Napoleon in his iniquitous attack upon the
liberties of Spain; that it saw in his success the probable fulfilment
of its designs upon the Floridas;[359] and that its chosen ground for
proceeding against Great Britain, rather than France, was her refusal
to conform her action to a statement of the Emperor's, the illusory
and deceptive character of which became continually more apparent.

To declare war because of the Orders in Council was a simple,
straightforward, and wholly justifiable course; but the flying months
made more and more evident, to the Government and its agents abroad,
that it was vain to expect revocation on the ground of Napoleon's
recall of his edicts, for they were not recalled. Having entered upon
this course, however, it seemed impossible to recede, or to
acknowledge a mistake, the pinch of which was nevertheless felt.
Writing to Russell, whose service in Paris, from October, 1810, to
October, 1811, and transfer thence to London, made him unusually
familiar, on both sides of the Channel, with the controversy over
Champagny's letter of August 5, 1810, Madison speaks "of the delicacy
of our situation, having in view, on the one hand, the importance of
obtaining from the French Government confirmation of the repeal of the
Decrees, and on the other that of not weakening the ground on which
the British repeal was urged."[360] That is, it would be awkward to
have the British ministry find out that we were pressing France for a
confirmation of that very revocation which we were confidently
asserting to them to be indisputable, and to require in good faith the
withdrawal of their Orders. Respecting action taken under the
so-called repeal, Russell had written on March 15, 1811, over three
months after it was said to take effect, "By forbearing to condemn, or
to acquit, distinctly and loyally, [the vessels seized since November
1], this Government encourages us to persevere in our non-importation
against England, and England to persist in her orders against us. This
state of things appears calculated to produce mutual complaint and
irritation, and cannot probably be long continued without leading to a
more serious contest, ... which is perhaps an essential object of this
country's policy."[361] July 15, he expressed regret to the Duke of
Bassano, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, that the proceedings
concerning captured American vessels "had been so partial, and
confined to cases which from their peculiar circumstances proved
nothing conclusively in relation to the revocation of the French
Edicts."[362]

Russell might have found some light as to the causes of these delays,
could he have seen a note addressed by the Emperor to the
Administration of Commerce, April 29. In this, renewing the reasoning
of the Bayonne Decree, he argued that every American vessel which
touched at an English port was liable to confiscation in the United
States; consequently, could be seized by an American cruiser on the
open sea; therefore, was equally open to seizure there by a French
cruiser--the demand advanced by Canning[363] which gave such just
offence; and if by a French cruiser at sea, likewise in a French port
by the French Government. She was in fact no longer American, not even
a denationalized American, but an English vessel. Under this
supposition, Napoleon luminously inferred, "It could be said: The
Decrees of Berlin and Milan are recalled as to the United States, but,
as every ship which has stopped in England, or is destined thither, is
a ship unacknowledged (_sans aveu_), which American laws punish and
confiscate, she may be confiscated in France." The Emperor concluded
that should this theory not be capable of substantiation, the matter
might for the present be left obscure.[364] On September 13 the ships
in question had not been liberated.

Coincidently with his note to Bassano, Russell wrote to Monroe, "It is
my conviction that the great object of their policy is to entangle us
in a war with England. They therefore abstain from doing any act which
would furnish clear and unequivocal testimony of the revocation of
their decrees, lest it should induce the extinction of the British
Orders, and thereby appease our irritation against their enemy. Hence,
of all the captured vessels since November 1, the three which were
liberated were precisely those which had not violated the
Decrees."[365] Yet, such were the exigencies of the debate with
England, those three cases were transmitted by him at the same time to
the American _chargé_ in London as evidence of the revocation.[366] To
the French Minister he wrote again, August 8, "After the declarations
of M. de Champagny and yourself, I cannot permit myself to doubt the
revocation; ... but I may be allowed to lament that no fact has yet
come to my knowledge of a character unequivocally and incontrovertibly
to confirm that revocation." "That none of the captured vessels have
been condemned, instead of proving the extinction of the edicts,
appears rather to be evidence, at best, of a commutation of the
penalty from prompt confiscation to perpetual detention."[367] The
matter was further complicated by an announcement of Napoleon to the
Chamber of Commerce, in April of the same year, that the Berlin and
Milan Decrees were the fundamental law of the Empire concerning
neutral commerce, and that American ships would be repelled from
French ports, unless the United States conformed to those decrees, by
excluding British ships and merchandise.[368] Under such conditions,
argument with a sceptical British ministry was attended with
difficulties. The position to which the Government had become reduced,
by endeavoring to play off France and Great Britain against each
other, in order to avoid a war with either, was as perplexing as
humiliating. "Great anxiety,"[369] to which little sympathy can be
extended, was felt in Washington as to the evidence for the actuality
of the repeals.

The situation was finally cleared up by a clever move of the British
Cabinet, forcing Napoleon's hand at a moment when the Orders in
Council could with difficulty be maintained longer against popular
discontent. On March 10, 1812, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs,
in a report to the Senate, reiterated the demands of the Decrees, and
asserted again that, until those demands were conceded by England, the
Decrees must be enforced against Powers which permitted their flags to
be denationalized. The position thus reaffirmed was emphasized by a
requirement for a large increase of the army for this object. "It is
necessary that all the disposable forces of France be available for
sending everywhere where the English flag, and other flags,
denationalized or convoyed by English ships of war, may seek to
enter."[370] No exceptions in favor of the United States being
stated, the British ministry construed the omission as conclusive
proof of the unqualified continuance of the Decrees;[371] and the
occasion was taken to issue an Order in Council, defining the
Government's position, both in the past and for the future. Quoting
the French minister's Report, as removing all doubts of Napoleon's
persistence in the maintenance of a system, "as inconsistent with
neutral rights and independence as it was hostile to the maritime
rights and commercial interests of Great Britain," the Prince Regent
declared that, "if at any time thereafter the Berlin and Milan Decrees
should be absolutely and unconditionally repealed, by some authentic
act of the French Government, publicly promulgated, then the Orders in
Council of January, 1807, and April, 1809, shall without any further
order be, and the same are hereby declared from thenceforth to be,
wholly and absolutely revoked."[372] No exception could be taken to
the phrasing or form of this Order. The wording was precise and
explicit; the time fixed was definite,--the date of the French Repeal;
the manner of revocation was the same as that of promulgation, an
Order in Council observant of all usual formalities.

In substance, this well-timed State Paper challenged Champagny's
letter of August 5, 1810, and the American Non-Importation Act based
upon it. Both these asserted the revocation of the French Decrees. The
British Cabinet, seizing a happy opportunity, asked of the world the
production of the revocation, or else the justification of its own
course. The demand went far to silence the growing discontents at
home, and to embarrass the American Government in the grounds upon
which it had chosen to base its action. It was well calculated also
to disconcert the Emperor, for, unless he did something more definite,
dissension would increase in the United States, where, as Barlow
wrote, "It is well known to the world, for our public documents are
full of it, that great doubts exist, even among our best informed
merchants, and in the halls of Congress itself, whether the Berlin and
Milan Decrees are to this day repealed, or even modified, in regard to
the United States." The sentence is taken from a letter[373] which he
addressed to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, May 1, 1812, when
he had received the recent British Order. He pointed out how astutely
this step was calculated to undo the effect of Champagny's letter, and
to weaken the American Administration at the critical moment when it
was known to be preparing for war. He urged that the French Government
should now make and publish an authentic Act, declaring the Berlin and
Milan Decrees, as relative to the United States, to have ceased in
November, 1810. "Such an act is absolutely necessary to the American
Government; and, though solicited as an accommodation, it may be
demanded as a right. If it was the duty of France to cease to apply
those Decrees to the United States, it is equally her duty to
promulgate it to the world in as formal a manner as we have
promulgated our law for the exclusion of British merchandise. She
ought to declare and publish the non-application of these Decrees in
the same forms in which she enacted the Decrees. The President has
instructed me to propose and press this object."

At last the demand was made which should have been enforced eighteen
months before. After sending the letter, Barlow had "a pretty sharp
conversation" with Bassano, in which he perceived a singular
reluctance to answer his letter. At last the Duke placed before him a
Decree, drawn up in due and customary form, dated a year
before,--April 28, 1811,--declaring that "the Decrees of Berlin and
Milan are definitively, and to date from the first day of November
last, [1810], considered as not having existed in regard to American
vessels."[374] This Decree, Bassano said, had been communicated to
Russell, and also sent to Serrurier, the French minister at
Washington, with orders to convey it to the American Government. Both
Russell and Serrurier denied ever having received the paper.[375]

Barlow made no comment upon the strange manner in which this document
was produced to him, and confined himself to inquiring if it had been
published. The reply could only be, No; a singular admission with
regard to a formal paper a year old, and of such importance to all
concerned. He then asked that a copy might be sent him. Upon receipt,
he at once hastened it to Russell in London, by the sloop of war
"Wasp," then lying in a French port. He wrote, "You will doubtless
render an essential service to both Great Britain and the United
States by communicating it without loss of time to the Foreign
Secretary. If by this the cause of war should be removed, there is an
obvious reason for keeping the secret, if possible, so long as that
the "Wasp" may not bring the news to this country in any other manner
but in your despatch. This Government, as you must long have
perceived, wishes not to see that effect produced; and I should not
probably have obtained the letter and documents from the Minister, if
the Prince Regent's Declaration had not convinced this Government that
the war was now become inevitable."[376]

Russell transmitted the Decree to the British Foreign Secretary May
20, 1812. The Government was at the moment in confusion, through the
assassination, May 11, of Mr. Perceval, the Prime Minister; who,
though not esteemed of the first order of statesmanship by his
contemporaries and colleagues, had been found in recent negotiations
the only available man about whom a cabinet could unite. A period of
suspense followed, in which the difficulty of forming a new
government, owing to personal antagonisms, was complicated by radical
differences as to public policy, especially in the cardinal point of
pursuing or relinquishing the war in the peninsula. Not till near the
middle of June was an arrangement reached. The same ministry,
substantially, remained in power, with Lord Liverpool as premier;
Castlereagh continuing as Foreign Secretary. This retained in office
the party identified with the Orders in Council, and favoring armed
support to the Spanish revolt.

The delay in settling the government afforded an excuse for postponing
action upon the newly discovered French Decree. It permitted also time
for reflection. Just before Perceval's death, Russell had noted a firm
determination to maintain the Orders in Council, conditioned only by
the late Declaration of April 21; but at the same time there was
evident apprehension of the consequences of war with the United
States.[377] This, he carefully explained, was due to no apprehension
of American military power. Even Lord Grenville, one of the chief
leaders of the Opposition, was satisfied that the United States could
not conquer Canada. "We are, indeed, most miserably underrated in
Europe." "It is not believed here, notwithstanding the spirited report
of the Committee on Foreign Relations, that we shall resort to any
definitive measures. We have indeed a reputation in Europe for saying
so much and doing so little that we shall not be believed in earnest
until we act in a manner not to be mistaken." "I am persuaded this
Government has presumed much on our weakness and divisions, and that
it continues to believe that we have not energy and union enough to
make effective war. Nor is this confined to the ministry, but extends
to the leaders of the Opposition." "Mr. Perceval is well known to
calculate with confidence that even in case of war we shall be obliged
to resort to a license trade for a supply of British manufactures."
"He considers us incapable even of bearing the privations of a state
of hostility with England, and much more incapable of becoming a
formidable enemy." On March 3 Perceval in a debate in the House had
indicated the most positive intentions of maintaining the Orders, and
asserted that, in consequence of Napoleon's Decrees, Great Britain was
no longer restrained by the law of nations in the extent or form of
retaliation to which she may resort upon the enemy. "I cannot perceive
the slightest indication of apprehension of a rupture with the United
States, or any measure of preparation to meet such an event. Such is
the conviction of our total inability to make war that the five or six
thousand troops now in Canada are considered to be amply sufficient to
protect that province against our mightiest efforts."[378] A
revolution of sentiment was to be noted even in the minds of former
advocates. Castlereagh, at a levee on March 12, said to Russell that
the movements in the United States appeared to him to be nothing but
party evolutions.

There was, however, another side to the question which occasioned more
concern to the British ministry. "It is the increasing want of our
intercourse," wrote Russell May 9, "rather than the apprehension of
our arms which leads to a conciliatory spirit" which he had recently
noticed. "They will endeavor to avoid the calamity of war with the
United States by every means which can save their pride and their
consistency. The scarcity of bread in this country, the distress of
the manufacturing towns, and the absolute dependency of the allied
troops in the Peninsula on our supplies, form a check on their conduct
which they can scarcely have the hardihood to disregard."[379] Two
days after these words were written, the murder of Perceval added
political anarchy to the embarrassments of the Government. The crisis
then impending was indeed momentous. War between France and Russia was
certain. Upon its outcome depended the fall of the Continental System,
or its prevalence over all Europe in an extent and with a rigor never
yet reached. "Some of the Powers of Europe," said the Emperor, "have
not fulfilled their promise with respect to the Continental System. I
must force them to it." In carrying this message to the Senate, the
Minister of Foreign Affairs said: "In whatever port of Europe a
British ship can enter there must be a French garrison to prevent
it;"[380] an interesting commentary upon the neutral regulations to
which the United States professed that neither she nor Great Britain
had any claim to object, because municipal. Great Britain had already
touched ruin too nearly to think lightly of the conditions. By her
Orders in Council she had so retorted Napoleon's Decrees as to induce
him, in order still further to enforce them, into the Peninsular War,
and now into that with Russia. To uphold the latter, her busy
negotiators, profiting by his high-handedness, had obtained for the
Czar peace with Sweden and Turkey. More completely to sustain him, it
was essential to support in fullest effect the powerful diversion
which retained three hundred thousand French troops in Spain. To do
this, the assistance of American food supplies was imperative.

If peace with the United States could be maintained, the triumph of
British diplomacy would be unqualified. The announcement of the
alleged Decree of April 28, 1811, came therefore most opportunely to
save their pride and self-consistency. On June 23 Castlereagh
transmitted to Russell an Order in Council published that day,
revoking as to the United States the celebrated Orders of January 7,
1807, and April 26, 1809. "I am to request you," ran his letter, "that
you will acquaint your Government that the Prince Regent's ministers
have taken _the earliest opportunity, after the resumption of the
Government_, to advise his Royal Highness to the adoption of a measure
grounded upon the document communicated by you to this office on the
20th ultimo;"[381] that is upon the Decree of April 28. No one
affected to believe that this had been framed at the date it bore.
"There was something so very much like fraud on the face of it," wrote
Russell, "that in several conversations which I have since had with
Lord Castlereagh, particularly at a dinner at the Lord Mayor's, when I
was placed next his lordship, I have taken care not to commit the
honor of my Government by attempting its vindication. When his
lordship called it a strange proceeding, a new specimen of French
diplomacy, a trick unworthy of a civilized government, I have merely
replied that the motives or good faith of the Government which issued
it, or the real time when it was issued, were of little importance as
to the effect which it ought to have here; that it was sufficient that
it contained a most precise and formal declaration that the Berlin and
Milan Decrees were revoked, in relation to America, from November 1,
1810."[382]

This was true; but the contention of the British Government had been
that the system of the Decrees was one whole; that its effect upon
America could not be dissociated from that upon continental neutral
states, where it was enforced under the guise of municipal
regulations; and that it must be revoked as a whole, in order to
impose the repeal of the Orders in Council. This position had been
reaffirmed in the recent Order of April 21. Opinion will therefore
differ as to the ministry's success in escaping, under the cover of
the new Decree, from the dilemma in which they were placed by the
irresistible agitation against the Orders in Council spreading through
the nation, and the necessity of avoiding war with the United States,
if possible, because of the affairs of the Peninsula. They made the
best of it by alleging, as it were, the spirit of the Order of April
21; the disposition "to take such measures as may tend to re-establish
the intercourse between neutral and belligerent nations upon its
accustomed principles." For this reason, while avowing explicitly that
the tenor of the Decree did not meet the requirements of the late
Order, the Orders in Council were revoked from August 1 next
following; and vessels captured after May 20, the date of Russell's
communicating the Decree, would be released. The ministry thus receded
gracefully under compulsion; and for their own people at least saved
their face.

Superficially the British diplomatic triumph for the moment seemed
complete. They had withdrawn their head from the noose just as it
began to tighten; and they had done so not on any ground of stringent
requirement, but with expressions of desire to go even farther than
their just claims, in order to promote conciliation. Russell naturally
felt a moment of bitter discomfiture. "In yielding, the ministers
appear to have been extremely perplexed in seeking for a subterfuge
for their credit. All their feelings and all their prejudices revolted
at the idea of publicly bending to the Opposition, or truckling to the
United States, and they were compelled to seize on the French Decree
of April 28, 1811, as the only means of saving themselves from the
degradation of acknowledging that they were vanquished. Without this
decree they would have been obliged to yield, and I almost regret that
it existed to furnish a salvo, miserable as it is, for their pride.
Our victory, however, is still complete, and I trust that those who
have refused to support our Government in the contest will at least be
willing to allow it the honors of a triumph."[383]

Russell wrote under the mistaken impression that the repeal of the
Orders had come in time to save war; in which event the yielding of
the British ministry, identified as it was with the Orders in Council,
might be construed as a triumph for the system of peaceable coercion,
by commercial restrictions, which formed the whole policy of Jefferson
and Madison. The triumph claimed by him must be qualified, however, by
the reflection that it was obtained at the expense of becoming the
dupe of a French deception, on its face so obvious as to deprive
mistake of the excuse of plausibility. The eagerness of the
Government, and of its representatives abroad, for a diplomatic
triumph, had precipitated them into a step for which, on the grounds
taken, no justification existed; and they had since then been dragged
at the wheels of Napoleon's chariot, in a constant dust of
mystification, until he had finally achieved the end of his scheming
and landed them in a war for which they were utterly unprepared, and
which it had been the chief object of commercial reprisals to avoid.
Thus considered, the triumph was barren.

On June 1, 1812, President Madison sent to Congress a message,[384]
reciting the long list of international wrongs endured at the hands of
Great Britain, and recommending to the deliberations of Congress the
question of peace or war. On June 4 the House of Representatives, by a
vote of seventy-nine yeas to forty-nine nays, declared that a state of
war existed between the United States and Great Britain. The bill then
went to the Senate, where it was discussed, amended, and passed on
June 17, by nineteen yeas to thirteen nays. The next day the House
concurred in the Senate's amendments, and the bill thus passed
received the President's signature immediately. The war thus began,
formally, on June 18, 1812, five days before the repeal of the British
Orders in Council.

While the Declaration of War was still under debate, the Secretary of
War, Eustis, on June 8 reported to the Senate that of the ten thousand
men authorized as a peace establishment, there were in service six
thousand seven hundred and forty-four. He was unable to state what
number had been enlisted of the twenty-five thousand regulars provided
by the legislation of the current session; a singular exhibition of
the efficiency of the Department. He had no hesitation, however, in
expressing an unofficial opinion that there were five thousand of
these recruits. It is scarce necessary to surmise what the condition
of the army was likely to be, with James Wilkinson as the senior
general officer of consecutive service, and with Dearborn, a man of
sixty, and in civil life ever since the War of Independence, as the
first major-general appointed under the new legislation. The navy had
a noble and competent body of officers, in the prime of life, a large
proportion of whom had seen instructive service in the Barbary
conflict; but, as has been seen, Congress had no faith in a navy, and
refused it any increase. In this distrust the Administration shared.

Mr. Monroe, indeed, probably through his residence abroad, had
attained a juster view of the influence of a navy on foreign
relations. He has already been quoted in this connection,[385] but in
a letter to a friend, two years before 1812, he developed his opinions
with some precision. "I gave my opinion that our naval force ought to
be increased. In advising this, I urged that the naval force of the
United States ought not to be regulated by reference to the navies of
the Great Powers, but to the strength of the squadrons which they
usually stationed in time of war on our coasts, at the mouths of great
rivers, and in our harbors. I thought that such a force, incorporated
permanently with our system, would give weight at all times to our
negotiations, and by means thereof prevent wars and save money."[386]
Monroe at this time was not in the Administration. Such a policy was
diametrically opposed to that of Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin; and
when war came, ships had not been provided. Under the circumstances
the disposition of the Government was to put the ships they had under
a glass case.

"At the commencement of the war," wrote Monroe to Jefferson, "I was
decidedly of your opinion, that the best disposition which could be
made of our little navy would be to keep it in a body in a safe port,
from which it might sally, only on some important occasion, to render
essential service. Its safety, in itself, appeared an important
object; as, while safe, it formed a check on the enemy in all
operations along our coast, and increased proportionately his
expense, in the force to be kept up, as well to annoy our commerce as
to protect his own. The reasoning against this, in which all naval
officers have agreed, is that, if stationed together in a port,--New
York, for example,--the British would immediately block up this, by a
force rather superior, and then harass our coast and commerce, without
restraint, and with any force, however small. In that case a single
frigate might, by cruising along the coast, and menacing continually
different parts, keep in motion great bodies of militia; that, while
our frigates are at sea, the expectation that they may be met together
will compel the British to keep in a body, whenever they institute a
blockade or cruise, a force equal at least to our own whole force;
that they, [the American vessels] being the best sailors, hazard
little by cruising separately, or together occasionally, as they might
bring on an action, or avoid one, as they saw fit; that in that
measure they would annoy the enemy's commerce wherever they went,
excite alarm in the West Indies and elsewhere, and even give
protection to our own trade by drawing the enemy's squadron from our
own coast.... The reasoning in favor of each plan is so nearly equal
that it is hard to say which is best."[387] It is to be hoped that the
sequel will show which was best, although little can be hoped when
means, military and naval, have been allowed to waste as they had
under the essentially unmilitary Administrations since 1801.

On November 25, 1811, seven months before the war began, the Secretary
of the Treasury, Gallatin, communicated to the Senate a report on the
State of the Finances,[388] in which he showed that since 1801, by
economies which totally crippled the war power of the nation, the
public debt had been diminished from $80,000,000 to $34,000,000,--a
saving of $46,000,000, which lessened the annual interest on the debt
by $2,000,000. A good financial showing, doubtless; but, had there
been on hand the troops and the ships, which the saved money
represented, the War of 1812 might have had an issue more satisfactory
to national retrospect. Gallatin also showed, in this paper, that by
the restrictive system, enforced against Great Britain in consequence
of the Administration's decision that Napoleon's revocation of his
Decrees was real, the revenue had dropped from $12,000,000 to
$6,000,000; leaving the nation with a probable deficiency of
$2,000,000, on the estimate of a year of peace for 1812.

FOOTNOTES:

[172] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 152.

[173] Ibid., p. 147.

[174] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 290.

[175] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. ii. p. 488.

[176] That is, as restrictive of neutral shipping.

[177] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 410.

[178] Wellesley, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Pinkney, Dec. 29,
1810; also, Feb. 11, 1811. American State Papers, Foreign Relations,
vol. iii. pp. 409, 412. See also Sir Wm. Scott, in the Court of
Admiralty, Ibid., p. 421.

[179] Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire,
chaps. xvii., xviii.

[180] Declaration of the King's reservations, Dec. 31, 1806. American
State Papers, vol. iii. p. 152.

[181] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 159.

[182] Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. x. p. 1274.

[183] Aug. 12, 1805. American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol.
iii. p. 104.

[184] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 158.

[185] Jonathan Russell to the Secretary of State, Nov. 15, 1811. U.S.
State Department MSS.

[186] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 154,
160.

[187] Ibid., p. 166.

[188] The British Commissioners to Monroe and Pinkney, Nov. 8, 1806.
Ibid., p. 140.

[189] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 187.

[190] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 188.
Author's italics.

[191] Monroe to Madison, Aug. 4, 1807. American State Papers, Foreign
Relations, vol. iii. p. 186.

[192] That is, all vessels, including merchantmen.

[193] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 183-185.
Author's italics.

[194] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 191-193.

[195] American State Papers, vol. iii. pp. 199, 200.

[196] American State Papers, vol. iii. p. 202. Author's italics.

[197] Ibid., Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 201.

[198] Ibid., p. 202.

[199] Ibid., p. 203.

[200] The principal part of the correspondence between Rose and
Madison will be found in American State Papers, Foreign Relations,
vol. iii. pp. 213-220. Rose's instructions from Canning were first
published by Mr. Henry Adams, History of the United States, vol. iv.
pp. 178-182. They were of a character that completely justify the
caution of the American Government in refusing to go further without
knowing their contents, concerning which, indeed, Madison wrote that a
glimpse had been obtained in the informal interviews, which showed
their inadmissibility. Madison to Pinkney, Feb. 19, 1808, U.S. State
Department MSS.

[201] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 300.

[202] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 200.

[203] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 243.

[204] Ibid., pp. 244-245.

[205] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 243.

[206] Armstrong to Smith, U.S. Secretary of State, Jan. 28, 1810.
Ibid., p. 380. Author's italics.

[207] American State Papers, vol. iii. p. 380. Author's italics.

[208] Barlow to Bassano, Nov. 10, 1811. U.S. State Department MSS.
Author's italics.

[209] Barlow to Monroe, Dec. 19, 1811. U.S. State Department MSS.

[210] Feb. 22, 1808. American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol.
iii. p. 206.

[211] Giles, Annals of Congress, 1808-09, pp. 123-125.

[212] N.Y. Evening Post, May 12, 1808.

[213] Jefferson, under date of Nov. 15, 1807, alludes to such a
report. (Jefferson's Works, vol. v. p. 211.) Already, indeed, on Aug.
19, 1807, an Order in Council, addressed to vessels bearing the
neutral flags of Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, Papenburg, or Kniphausen, had
been issued, which, though brief, imposed precisely the same
restrictions as the later celebrated ones here under discussion.
(Annual Register, 1807, State Papers, p. 730; Naval Chronicle, vol.
xviii. p. 151.) The fact is interesting, as indicative of the date of
formulating a project, for the execution of which the "Horizon"
decision probably afforded the occasion.

[214] Erskine's communication was dated Feb. 23, 1808. (American State
Papers, vol. iii. p. 209.) Pinkney, however, had forwarded a copy of
the Orders on November 17. (Ibid., p. 203.) Canning's letter, of which
Erskine's was a transcript, was dated Dec. 1, 1807. (British Foreign
Office Archives.)

[215] Senator Giles of Virginia. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 218.

[216] The following are instances: Philadelphia, February 23. The ship
"Venus," King, hence to the Isle of France, has returned to port.
January 17, Lat. 25° N., Long. 34° W., fell in with an English
merchant fleet of thirty-six sail, under convoy of four ships of war.
Was boarded by the sloop of war "Wanderer," which endorsed on all her
papers, forbidding to enter any port belonging to France or her
allies, they all being declared in a state of blockade. Captain King
therefore put back. (N.Y. Evening Post, Feb. 24, 1808.) Salem, Mass.,
February 23. Arrived bark "Active," Richardson. Sailed hence for
Malaga, December 12. January 2, Lat. 37° N., Long. 17° W., boarded by
a British cruiser, and papers endorsed against entering any but a
British port. The voyage being thus frustrated, Captain Richardson
returned. Marblehead, February 29. Schooner "Minerva" returned, having
been captured under the Orders in Council, released, and come home.
Ship "George," from Amsterdam, arrived at New York, March 6, via
Yarmouth. Was taken by an English cruiser into Yarmouth and there
cleared. (Evening Post, March 6.)

[217] N.Y. Evening Post, March 24, 1808.

[218] Letter of John Quincy Adams to Harrison Gray Otis.

[219] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 245.
Author's italics.

[220] Correspondence of Thomas Barclay, p. 272.

[221] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 206.

[222] "We expected, too, some effect from coercion of interest."
(Jefferson to Armstrong, March 5, 1809. Works, vol. v. p. 433.) "The
embargo is the last card we have to play short of war." (Jefferson to
Madison, March 11, 1808. Ibid., p. 258.) "The coercive experiment we
have made." (Monroe to John Taylor. Works, vol. v. p. 89.) "I place
immense value on the experiment being fully made how far an Embargo
may be an _effectual weapon_ in future, as well as on this occasion."
(Jefferson. Works, vol. v. p. 289.) "Bonaparte ought to be
particularly satisfied with us, by whose unyielding adherence to
principle England has been forced into the revocation of her Orders."
(Jefferson to Madison, April 27, 1809. Works, vol. v. p. 442.) This
revocation was not actual, but a mistake of the British minister at
Washington. "I have always understood that there were two objects
contemplated by the Embargo Laws. The first, precautionary; the
second, coercive, operating upon the aggressive belligerents, by
addressing strong appeals to the interests of both." (Giles of
Virginia, in Senate, Nov. 24, 1808.) "The embargo is not designed to
affect our own citizens, but to make an impression in Europe."
(Williams of South Carolina, in House of Representatives, April 14,
1808.)

[223] The writer, in a previous work (Sea Power in the French
Revolution), believes himself to have shown that the losses by capture
of British traders did not exceed two and one half per cent.

[224] Letter to Otis.

[225] To Thomas Paine, concerning an improved gunboat devised by him.
Sept. 6, 1807. (Jefferson's Works, vol. v. p. 189.)

[226] Jefferson's Works, vol. v. pp. 417, 426.

[227] June 14, 1809. Works, vol. v. p. 455.

[228] An American ship putting into England, leaky, reported that on
Dec. 18, 1807, she had been boarded by a French privateer, which
allowed her to proceed because bound to Holland. The French captain
said he had captured four Americans, all sent into Passage, in Spain;
and that his orders were to bring in all Americans bound to English
ports. (N.Y. Evening Post, March 1, 1808.) This was under the Berlin
Decree, as that of Milan issued only December 17. The Berlin Decree
proclaimed the British Islands under blockade, but Napoleon for a time
reserved decision as to the mere act of sailing for them being an
infringement. Mr. James Stephen, in Parliament, stated that in 1807
several ships, not less than twenty-one, he thought, were taken for
the mere fact of sailing between America and England; in consequence,
insurance on American vessels rose 50 per cent, from 2-½ to 3-¾.
(Parliamentary Debates, vol. xiii. p. xxxix. App.) In the Evening Post
of March 3, 1808, will be found, quoted from a French journal, cases
of four vessels carried into France, apparently only because bound to
England.

[229] Henry Adams's History of the United States, vol. v. p. 242.

[230] "Nothing can establish firmly the republican principles of our
government but an establishment of them in England. France will be the
apostle for this." (Jefferson's Works, vol. iv. p. 192.) "The
subjugation of England would be a general calamity. Happily it is
impossible. Should invasion end in her being only republicanized, I
know not on what principles a true republican of our country could
lament it." (Ibid., p. 217; Feb. 23, 1798.)

[231] Jefferson to Richard M. Johnson, March 10, 1808. Works, vol. v.
p. 257.

[232] London Times of August 6, quoted in N.Y. Evening Post of Oct.
10, 1808.

[233] Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 1032.

[234] Captains' Letters, U.S. Navy Department MSS. Jan. 11, 1808.

[235] Thomas Barclay's Correspondence, p. 274. Author's italics.

[236] N.Y. Evening Post, Sept. 1, 1808.

[237] Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xii. p. 326.

[238] Life of Sir William Parker, vol. i. p. 304.

[239] Barlow to Bassano, Nov. 10, 1811. U.S. State Department MSS.

[240] N.Y. Evening Post, Feb. 18, June 30, 1808; Feb. 24, 1809.

[241] Senator White of Delaware. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 52.

[242] Works, vol. v. p. 336.

[243] "Trinidad, July 1, 1808. We have just received 15,000 barrels of
flour from Passamaquoddy, and not a week passes but some drops in from
Philadelphia, Norfolk, etc. Cargo of 1,000 barrels would not now
command more than twelve dollars; a year ago, eighteen." (N.Y. Evening
Post, July 25.)

[244] N.Y. Evening Post, Jan. 17, 1809.

[245] Ibid., February 6.

[246] Mitchill of N.Y. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, pp. 86, 92.

[247] Jefferson's Works, vol. v. pp. 298, 318.

[248] N.Y. Evening Post, Aug. 31, 1808.

[249] Feb. 17, 1812. Captains' Letters, U.S. Navy Department MSS.

[250] American State Papers, Finance, vol. ii. p. 306.

[251] With flour varying at short intervals from $30 to $18, and $12,
a barrel, it is evident that speculation must be rife, and also that
only general statements can be made as to conditions over any length
of time.

[252] Orchard Cook, of Massachusetts, said in the House of
Representatives that 590 vessels sailed thus by permission. Annals of
Congress, 1808-09, p. 1250.

[253] N.Y. Evening Post, Oct. 3, 1808.

[254] Ibid., Sept. 2, 1808.

[255] N.Y. Evening Post, Feb. 28, 1809.

[256] Ibid., Sept. 21, 1808.

[257] Ibid., Dec. 8, 1808.

[258] Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xii. p. 1194.

[259] Lord Grenville in House of Lords. Ibid., p. 780.

[260] N.Y. Evening Post, June 28, 1808.

[261] Ibid., April 8.

[262] Ibid., June 28.

[263] Ibid., October 27. The same effect, though on a much smaller
scale, was seen in France. Deprived, through the joint operation of
the embargo and the Orders in Council, of colonial produce brought by
Americans, a number of vessels were fitted out, and armed as letters
of marque, to carry on this trade. These adventures were very
successful, though they by no means filled the void caused by the
absence of American carriers. See Evening Post of Dec. 29, 1808, and
March 22 and 28, 1809. One of these, acting on her commission as a
letter of marque, captured an American brig, returning from India,
which was carried into Cayenne and there condemned under the Milan
Decree. Ibid., Dec. 6, 1808.

[264] N.Y. Evening Post, Nov. 23, 1808.

[265] For some instances see: Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 428;
N.Y. Evening Post, Feb. 5, 8, 12; May 13; Aug. 26; Sept. 27, 1808.
Gallatin, in a report dated Dec. 10, 1808, said, "At no time has there
been so much specie, so much redundant unemployed capital in the
country;" scarcely a token of prosperity in so new a country.
(American State Papers, Finance, vol. ii. p. 309.)

[266] American State Papers, Finance, vol. ii. pp. 307, 373, 442. The
second figure is an average of the two years, 1808, 1809, within which
fell the fifteen months of embargo.

[267] Ibid., p. 309 (Dec. 10, 1808).

[268] "The schooner 'John,' Clayton, from La Guayra, with two hundred
thousand pounds of coffee, has been seized at Leghorn, and it was
expected would be condemned under the Bayonne Decree. The 'John'
sailed from Baltimore for La Guayra, by permission, under the fourth
supplementary Embargo Act. By some means or other she found her way to
Leghorn, where it was vainly hoped she might safely dispose of her
cargo." (N.Y. Evening Post, Dec. 20, 1808.) "The frigate 'Chesapeake,'
Captain Decatur, cruising in support of the embargo, captured off
Block Island the brig 'Mount Vernon' and the ship 'John' loaded with
provisions. Of these the former, at least, is expressly stated to have
cleared 'in ballast,' by permission." (Ibid., Aug. 15, 1808.)

[269] Two or three quotations are sufficient to illustrate a condition
notorious at the time. "Jamaica. Nine Americans came with the June
fleet, (from England) with full cargoes. At first it was thought these
vessels would not be allowed to take cargoes, (because contrary to
Navigation Act); but a little reflection taught the Government better.
Rum is the surplus crop of Jamaica, and to keep on hand that which
they do not want is too much our way (_i.e._ embargo). The British
admiral granted these vessels convoy without hesitation, which saved
them from five to seven and one half percent in insurance." (N.Y.
Evening Post, Aug. 2, 1808.) "Gibraltar. A large number of American
vessels are in these seas, sailing under license from Great Britain,
to and from ports of Spain, without interruption. Our informant sailed
in company with eight or ten, laden with wine and fruit for England."
(Ibid., June 30.) Senator Hillhouse, of Connecticut: "Many of our
vessels which were out when the embargo was laid have remained out.
They have been navigating under the American flag, and have been
constantly employed, at vast profit." (Annals of Congress, 1808, p.
172.)

[270] "At Gibraltar, between January 1 and April 15, eight vessels
were sent in for breach of the Orders, of which seven were condemned."
(N.Y. Evening Post, May 25, 1808.) "Baltimore, Sept. 30. 1808. Arrived
brig. 'Sophia' from Rotterdam, July 28, _via_ Harwich, England.
Boarded by British brig 'Phosphorus', and ordered to England. After
arrival, cargo (of gin) gauged, and a duty exacted of eight pence
sterling per gallon. Allowed to proceed, with a license, after paying
duty. In company with the 'Sophia', and sent in with her, were three
vessels bound for New York, with similar cargoes." (Ibid., Oct. 3.)
"American ship 'Othello,' from New York for Nantes, with assorted
cargo. Ship, with thirty hogsheads of sugar condemned on ground of
violating blockade;" _i.e._ Orders in Council. (Naval Chronicle, vol.
xx. p. 62.) Besides the 'Othello' there are two other cases, turning
on the Orders, by compliance or evasion. From France came numerous
letters announcing condemnations of vessels, because boarded by
British cruisers. (N.Y. Evening Post, Sept. 10, Oct. 5, Oct. 27, Dec.
6, Dec. 10, 1808; March 17, 1809.) Proceedings were sometimes even
more peremptory. More than one American vessel, though neutral, was
burned or sunk at sea, as amenable under Napoleon's decrees. (Ibid.,
Nov. 3 and Nov. 5, Dec. 10, 1808.) See also affidavits in the case of
the "Brutus", burned, and of the "Bristol Packet", scuttled. (Ibid.,
April 5 and April 7, 1808.)

[271] Hillhouse in the Senate (Annals of Congress, 1808, p. 172), and
Cook, of Massachusetts, in the House. "Of about five hundred and
ninety which sailed, only eight or ten have been captured." (Ibid.,
1808-09, p. 1250.) Yet many went to Guadaloupe and other forbidden
French islands. At Saint Pierre, Martinique, in the middle of
September, were nearly ninety American vessels. "Flour, which had been
up to fifty dollars per barrel, fell to thirty dollars, in consequence
of the number of arrivals from America." (N.Y. Evening Post, Sept. 20,
1808.) This shows how the permission to sail "in ballast" was abused.

[272] N.Y. Evening Post, Sept. 7, 1808.

[273] Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 406.

[274] N.Y. Evening Post, May 4 and 13, 1808.

[275] For the text of the Act see Annals of Congress, 1808-09, pp.
1798-1803.

[276] Ibid., p. 233.

[277] Giles of Virginia. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, pp. 353-381.

[278] Williams of South Carolina. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p.
1236.

[279] Nelson of Maryland. Annals of Congress, 1808-09, p. 1258.

[280] Annals of Congress, 1808-09, pp. 1438-1439.

[281] Monroe to Jefferson, Jan. 18 and Feb. 2, 1809. Monroe's Works,
vol. v. pp. 91, 93-95.

[282] To John Taylor, January 9. Ibid., p. 89.

[283] Pinkney, in connection with these, speaks of the "expected" Act
of Congress. American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p.
299.

[284] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 299.

[285] This sentence was omitted in the papers when submitted to
Congress.

[286] State Papers, p. 300.

[287] February 7, 1810. American State Papers, Commerce and
Navigation, vol. i. p. 812.

[288] The correspondence between Erskine and the Secretary of State on
this occasion is in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol.
iii. pp. 295-297.

[289] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 304-308.

[290] Ibid., p. 303.

[291] Ibid.

[292] Ibid., p. 301.

[293] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 241.

[294] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 318.

[295] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 308-319.

[296] Author's italics.

[297] See Madison's Works, vol. ii. p. 499.

[298] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. 319-322.

[299] The italics in this quotation (American State Papers, vol. iii.
p. 300) are introduced by the author, to draw attention to the words
decisive to be noted.

[300] The italics are Smith's. They serve exactly, however, to
illustrate just wherein consists the perverseness of omission (the
words "operation of"), and the misstatement of this remarkable
passage.

[301] Secretary Smith subsequently stated that this sentence was added
by express interposition of the President. (Smith's Address to the
American people.)

[302] Canning in his instructions to Jackson (No. 1, July 1, 1809,
Foreign Office MSS.) wrote: "The United States cannot have _believed_
that such an arrangement as Mr. Erskine consented to accept was
conformable to his instructions. _If_ Mr. Erskine availed himself of
the liberty allowed to him of communicating those instructions in the
affair of the Orders in Council, they must have _known_ that it was
not so." My italics.

[303] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 352.

[304] Writings of James Madison. Published by Order of Congress, 1865.
Vol. ii. p. 439.

[305] Ibid., p. 440. Turreau was the French minister.

[306] Works of Jefferson, vol. v. pp. 442-445.

[307] "When Lord Wellesley's answer speaks of the offence imputed to
Jackson, it does not say he gave no such cause of offence, but simply
relied on his repeated asseverations that he did not mean to offend."
Pinkney to Madison, Aug. 13, 1810. Wheaton's Life of Pinkney, p. 446.

[308] Annals of Congress, 1809-10.

[309] Ibid., January 8, 1810, pp. 1164, 1234.

[310] Ibid., p. 1234.

[311] Annals of Congress, 1809-10, pp. 754, 755.

[312] Ibid., pp. 606, 607.

[313] Annals of Congress, 1810, p. 2582.

[314] For Armstrong's letter and the text of the Decree, see American
State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 384.

[315] Armstrong to Champagny, March 10, 1810. American State Papers,
Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 382.

[316] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 362.

[317] Ibid., p. 385.

[318] Ibid.

[319] The Secretary of State to Armstrong, June 5, 1810. American
State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 385.

[320] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 386.

[321] Ibid., p. 387.

[322] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 364.

[323] Ibid., p. 365.

[324] Jefferson to Madison, April 27, 1809. Works, vol. v. p. 442.

[325] Correspondance de Napoléon. Napoleon to Champagny, July 31, and
August 2, 1810, vol. xx. p. 644, and vol. xxi. p. 1.

[326] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 209.
Author's italics.

[327] Canning to Erskine, Dec. 1, 1807, transmitting the Orders in
Council of November 11. British Foreign Office MSS.

[328] Monroe to Foster, Oct. 1, 1811. American State Papers, Foreign
Relations, vol. iii. p. 445. See also, more particularly, ibid., pp.
440, 441.

[329] U.S. State Department MSS., and State Papers, vol. iii. p. 250.

[330] That is, verbally, before his formal letter of February 23.

[331] Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates, vol. x. p. 669. A search
through the correspondence of Canning and Erskine, as well as through
the debates of Parliament upon the Orders in Council, January-April,
1808, reveals nothing confirmatory of the _pari passu_ claim, put
forth in Madison's letters quoted, and afterwards used by Monroe in
his arguments with Foster. But in Canning's instructions to Jackson,
July 1, 1809 (No. 3), appears a sentence which may throw some light on
the apparent misunderstanding. "As to the willingness or ability of
neutral nations to resist the Decrees of France, his Majesty has
always professed ... _a disposition to relax or modify his measures of
retaliation and self-defence in proportion as those of neutral,
nations_ should come in aid of them and take their place." This would
be action _pari passu_ with a neutral; and if the same were expressed
to Erskine, it is far from incredible, in view of his remarkable
action of 1809, that he may have extended it verbally without
authority to cover an act of France. My italics.

[332] Wellesley to Pinkney, Aug. 31, 1810. American State Papers,
Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 366.

[333] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 376.

[334] The American flag was used in this way to cover British
shipping. For instances see American State Papers, Foreign Relations,
vol. iii. p. 342.

[335] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 408.

[336] Author's italics.

[337] Armstrong had sailed for the United States two months before.

[338] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 391.

[339] Russell on November 17 wrote that he had reason to believe that
the revocation of the Decrees had not been notified to the ministers
charged with the execution of them. On December 4 he said that, as the
ordinary practice in seizing a vessel was to hold her sequestered till
the papers were examined in Paris, this might explain why the local
Custom-House was not notified of the repeal. Russell to the Secretary
of State, U.S. State Department MSS.

[340] Langdon Cheves of South Carolina. Annals of Congress, 1810-11,
pp. 885-887.

[341] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 393.

[342] Annals of Congress, 1810-11, p. 990.

[343] Pinkney to the Secretary of State, Jan. 17, 1811. American State
Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 408.

[344] Foster had succeeded as _chargé d'affaires_ in May, 1809, by the
departure of Merry, formerly minister to the United States. He was
afterwards appointed minister; but in June, 1810, under pressure from
Bonaparte, Sweden requested him to leave the country.

[345] Pearce, Life and Correspondence of the Marquis Wellesley, vol.
iii. p. 193.

[346] Author's italics.

[347] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 514.
Author's italics.

[348] Ibid., p. 435.

[349] Rodgers to Secretary of the Navy, Aug. 4, 1810. Captains'
Letters.

[350] Bainbridge to the Secretary of the Navy, May 3, 1810. Captains'
Letters. The case was not singular.

[351] Orders of Admiral Sawyer to the Captain of the "Little Belt."
American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 475.

[352] American State Papers, vol. iii. p. 473. In the absence of the
British admiral, the senior officer at Halifax assembled a board of
captains which collected what his letter styles the depositions of the
"Little Belt's" officers. Depositions would imply that the witnesses
were sworn, but it is not so said in the report of the Board, where
they simply "state." In the case of honorable gentlemen history may
give equal credit in either case; but the indication would be that
inquiry was less particular. The Board reports no question by itself;
the "statements" are in the first person, apparently in reply to the
request "tell all you know," and are uninterrupted by comment.

[353] The proceedings of this court are printed in American State
Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 477-497.

[354] Annals of Congress, 1811-12, p. 890.

[355] Dec. 17, 1811. American State Papers, Naval Affairs, vol. i. p.
247.

[356] Niles' Register, vol. ii. pp. 101-104.

[357] Russell to Monroe, May 30, 1812. U.S. State Department MSS.

[358] Russell to Monroe, August 15 and 21, 1812. U.S. State Department
MSS.

[359] See Jefferson's Works, vol. v. pp. 335, 337, 338, 339, 419,
442-445.

[360] Madison to Russell, Nov. 15, 1811. U.S. State Department MSS.

[361] Russell to Robert Smith, March 15, 1811. U.S. State Department
MSS.

[362] Russell to the Secretary of State, July 15, 1811. Ibid.

[363] Ante, p. 217.

[364] Note dictée en conseil d'Administration du Commerce, April 29,
1811. Correspondance de Napoléon, vol. xxii. p. 144.

[365] Russell to Monroe, July 13, 1811. U.S. State Department MSS.

[366] Russell to J.S. Smith, July 14, 1811. American State Papers,
Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 447.

[367] Russell to Bassano, Aug. 8, 1811. U.S. State Department MSS.

[368] Russell to Robert Smith, April, 1811. Ibid.

[369] Monroe to Russell, June 8, 1811. Ibid.

[370] Reports of the Ministers of Foreign Relations and of War, March
10, 1812. Moniteur, March 16.

[371] Russell to Monroe, April 19, 1812. U.S. State Department MSS.

[372] The copy of this Order in Council which the author is here using
is in the Naval Chronicle, vol. xxvii. p. 466.

[373] This letter, which is given in a very mutilated form in the
American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 602, has been
published in full by the Bureau of Historical Research, Carnegie
Institution, Washington. Report on the Diplomatic Archives of the
Department of State, 1904, p. 64.

[374] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 603.

[375] Barlow's interview with Bassano, and the letters exchanged, will
be found in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p.
602-603. Russell's denial is on p. 614. Serrurier's is mentioned in a
Report made to the House by Monroe, Secretary of State, ibid., p. 609.

[376] Barlow to Russell, May 10, 1812. U.S. State Department MSS.

[377] Russell to Monroe, May 9, 1812. Ibid.

[378] The passages cited above are from Russell's correspondence with
the State Department, under the dates of January 10, February 3 and
19, March 4 and 20, 1812. U.S. State Department MSS.

[379] Russell to Monroe, May 9, 1812. U.S. State Department MSS.

[380] Barlow to Monroe, March 15, 1812. Ibid. Published by Bureau of
Historical Research, Carnegie Institution, 1904, p. 63.

[381] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 433.
Author's italics.

[382] Russell to Monroe, June 30, 1812. U.S. State Department MSS.

[383] Russell to Monroe, June 30, 1812. U.S. State Department MSS.

[384] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 405.

[385] Ante, p. 106.

[386] To John Taylor, Sept. 10, 1810. Works of James Monroe, vol. vi.
p. 128.

[387] Monroe to Jefferson, Monroe's Works, vol. v. p. 268.

[388] Annals of Congress, 1811-12, p. 2046.

    [Illustration: THEATRE OF LAND AND COAST WARFARE]

CHAPTER V

THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS

War being now immediately at hand, it is advisable, for the better
appreciation of the course of events, the more accurate estimate of
their historical and military value, to consider the relative
conditions of the two opponents, the probable seats of warlike
operations, and the methods which it was open to either to pursue.

Invasion of the British Islands, or of any transmarine possession of
Great Britain--save Canada--was denied to the United States by the
immeasurable inferiority of her navy. To cross the sea in force was
impossible, even for short distances. For this reason, land operations
were limited to the North American Continent. This fact, conjoined
with the strong traditional desire, received from the old French wars
and cherished in the War of Independence, to incorporate the Canadian
colonies with the Union, determined an aggressive policy by the United
States on the northern frontier. This was indeed the only
distinctively offensive operation available to her upon the land;
consequently it was imposed by reasons of both political and military
expediency. On the other hand, the sea was open to American armed
ships, though under certain very obvious restrictions; that is to say,
subject to the primary difficulty of evading blockades of the coast,
and of escaping subsequent capture by the very great number of
British cruisers, which watched all seas where British commerce went
and came, and most of the ports whence hostile ships might issue to
prey upon it. The principal trammel which now rests upon the movements
of vessels destined to cripple an enemy's commerce--the necessity to
renew the motive power, coal, at frequent brief intervals--did not
then exist. The wind, upon which motion depended, might at particular
moments favor one of two antagonists relatively to the other; but in
the long run it was substantially the same for all. In this respect
all were on an equal footing; and the supply, if fickle at times, was
practically inexhaustible. Barring accidents, vessels were able to
keep the sea as long as their provisions and water lasted. This period
may be reckoned as generally three months, while by watchful
administration it might at times be protracted to six.

It is desirable to explain here what was, and is, the particular
specific utility of operations directed toward the destruction of an
enemy's commerce; what its bearing upon the issues of war; and how,
also, it affects the relative interests of antagonists, unequally
paired in the matter of sea power. Without attempting to determine
precisely the relative importance of internal and external commerce,
which varies with each country, and admitting that the length of
transportation entails a distinct element of increased cost upon the
articles transported, it is nevertheless safe to say that, to nations
having free access to the sea, the export and import trade is a very
large factor in national prosperity and comfort. At the very least, it
increases by so much the aggregate of commercial transactions, while
the ease and copiousness of water carriage go far to compensate for
the increase of distance. Furthermore, the public revenue of maritime
states is largely derived from duties on imports. Hence arises,
therefore, a large source of wealth, of money; and money--ready money
or substantial credit--is proverbially the sinews of war, as the War
of 1812 was amply to demonstrate. Inconvertible assets, as business
men know, are a very inefficacious form of wealth in tight times; and
war is always a tight time for a country, a time in which its positive
wealth, in the shape of every kind of produce, is of little use,
unless by freedom of exchange it can be converted into cash for
governmental expenses. To this sea-commerce greatly contributes, and
the extreme embarrassment under which the United States as a nation
labored in 1814 was mainly due to commercial exclusion from the sea.
To attack the commerce of the enemy is therefore to cripple him, in
the measure of success achieved, in the particular factor which is
vital to the maintenance of war. Moreover, in the complicated
conditions of mercantile activity no one branch can be seriously
injured without involving others.

This may be called the financial and political effect of "commerce
destroying," as the modern phrase runs. In military effect, it is
strictly analogous to the impairing of an enemy's communications, of
the line of supplies connecting an army with its base of operations,
upon the maintenance of which the life of the army depends. Money,
credit, is the life of war; lessen it, and vigor flags; destroy it,
and resistance dies. No resource then remains except to "make war
support war;" that is, to make the vanquished pay the bills for the
maintenance of the army which has crushed him, or which is proceeding
to crush whatever opposition is left alive. This, by the extraction of
private money, and of supplies for the use of his troops, from the
country in which he was fighting, was the method of Napoleon, than
whom no man held more delicate views concerning the gross impropriety
of capturing private property at sea, whither his power did not
extend. Yet this, in effect, is simply another method of forcing the
enemy to surrender a large part of his means, so weakening him, while
transferring it to the victor for the better propagation of
hostilities. The exaction of a pecuniary indemnity from the worsted
party at the conclusion of a war, as is frequently done, differs from
the seizure of property in transit afloat only in method, and as peace
differs from war. In either case, money or money's worth is exacted;
but when peace supervenes, the method of collection is left to the
Government of the country, in pursuance of its powers of taxation, to
distribute the burden among the people; whereas in war, the primary
object being immediate injury to the enemy's fighting power, it is not
only legitimate in principle, but particularly effective, to seek the
disorganization of his financial system by a crushing attack upon one
of its important factors, because effort thus is concentrated on a
readily accessible, fundamental element of his general prosperity.
That the loss falls directly on individuals, or a class, instead of
upon the whole community, is but an incident of war, just as some men
are killed and others not. Indirectly, but none the less surely, the
whole community, and, what is more important, the organized
government, are crippled; offensive powers impaired.

But while this is the absolute tendency of war against commerce,
common to all cases, the relative value varies greatly with the
countries having recourse to it. It is a species of hostilities easily
extemporized by a great maritime nation; it therefore favors one whose
policy is not to maintain a large naval establishment. It opens a
field for a sea militia force, requiring little antecedent military
training. Again, it is a logical military reply to commercial
blockade, which is the most systematic, regularized, and extensive
form of commerce-destruction known to war. Commercial blockade is not
to be confounded with the military measure of confining a body of
hostile ships of war to their harbor, by stationing before it a
competent force. It is directed against merchant vessels, and is not
a military operation in the narrowest sense, in that it does not
necessarily involve fighting, nor propose the capture of the blockaded
harbor. It is not usually directed against military ports, unless
these happen to be also centres of commerce. Its object, which was the
paramount function of the United States Navy during the Civil War,
dealing probably the most decisive blow inflicted upon the
Confederacy, is the destruction of commerce by closing the ports of
egress and ingress. Incidental to that, all ships, neutrals included,
attempting to enter or depart, after public notification through
customary channels, are captured and confiscated as remorselessly as
could be done by the most greedy privateer. Thus constituted, the
operation receives far wider scope than commerce-destruction on the
high seas; for this is confined to merchantmen of belligerents, while
commercial blockade, by universal consent, subjects to capture
neutrals who attempt to infringe it, because, by attempting to defeat
the efforts of one belligerent, they make themselves parties to the
war.

In fact, commercial blockade, though most effective as a military
measure in broad results, is so distinctly commerce-destructive in
essence, that those who censure the one form must logically proceed to
denounce the other. This, as has been seen,[389] Napoleon did;
alleging in his Berlin Decree, in 1806, that war cannot be extended to
any private property whatever, and that the right of blockade is
restricted to _fortified_ places, actually invested by competent
forces. This he had the face to assert, at the very moment when he was
compelling every vanquished state to extract, from the private means
of its subjects, coin running up to hundreds of millions to replenish
his military chest for further extension of hostilities. Had this
dictum been accepted international law in 1861, the United States
could not have closed the ports of the Confederacy, the commerce of
which would have proceeded unmolested; and hostile measures being
consequently directed against men's persons instead of their trade,
victory, if accomplished at all, would have cost three lives for every
two actually lost. It is apparent, immediately on statement, that
against commerce-destruction by blockade, the recourse of the weaker
maritime belligerent is commerce-destruction by cruisers on the high
sea. Granting equal efficiency in the use of either measure, it is
further plain that the latter is intrinsically far less efficacious.
To cut off access to a city is much more certainly accomplished by
holding the gates than by scouring the country in search of persons
seeking to enter. Still, one can but do what one can. In 1861 to 1865,
the Southern Confederacy, unable to shake off the death grip fastened
on its throat, attempted counteraction by means of the "Alabama,"
"Sumter," and their less famous consorts, with what disastrous
influence upon the navigation--the shipping--of the Union it is
needless to insist. But while the shipping of the opposite belligerent
was in this way not only crippled, but indirectly was swept from the
seas, the Confederate cruisers, not being able to establish a
blockade, could not prevent neutral vessels from carrying on the
commerce of the Union. This consequently suffered no serious
interruption; whereas the produce of the South, its inconvertible
wealth--cotton chiefly--was practically useless to sustain the
financial system and credit of the people. So, in 1812 and the two
years following, the United States flooded the seas with privateers,
producing an effect upon British commerce which, though inconclusive
singly, doubtless co-operated powerfully with other motives to dispose
the enemy to liberal terms of peace. It was the reply, and the only
possible reply, to the commercial blockade, the grinding efficacy of
which it will be a principal object of these pages to depict. The
issue to us has been accurately characterized by Mr. Henry Adams, in
the single word "Exhaustion."[390]

Both parties to the War of 1812 being conspicuously maritime in
disposition and occupation, while separated by three thousand miles of
ocean, the sea and its navigable approaches became necessarily the
most extensive scene of operations. There being between them great
inequality of organized naval strength and of pecuniary resources,
they inevitably resorted, according to their respective force, to one
or the other form of maritime hostilities against commerce which have
been indicated. To this procedure combats on the high seas were merely
incidental. Tradition, professional pride, and the combative spirit
inherent in both peoples, compelled fighting when armed vessels of
nearly equal strength met; but such contests, though wholly laudable
from the naval standpoint, which under ordinary circumstances cannot
afford to encourage retreat from an equal foe, were indecisive of
general results, however meritorious in particular execution. They had
no effect upon the issue, except so far as they inspired moral
enthusiasm and confidence. Still more, in the sequel they have had a
distinctly injurious effect upon national opinion in the United
States. In the brilliant exhibition of enterprise, professional skill,
and usual success, by its naval officers and seamen, the country has
forgotten the precedent neglect of several administrations to
constitute the navy as strong in proportion to the means of the
country as it was excellent through the spirit and acquirements of its
officers. Sight also has been lost of the actual conditions of
repression, confinement, and isolation, enforced upon the maritime
frontier during the greater part of the war, with the misery and
mortification thence ensuing. It has been widely inferred that the
maritime conditions in general were highly flattering to national
pride, and that a future emergency could be confronted with the same
supposed facility, and as little preparation, as the odds of 1812 are
believed to have been encountered and overcome. This mental
impression, this picture, is false throughout, alike in its grouping
of incidents, in its disregard of proportion, and in its ignoring of
facts. The truth of this assertion will appear in due course of this
narrative, and it will be seen that, although relieved by many
brilliant incidents, indicative of the real spirit and capacity of the
nation, the record upon the whole is one of gloom, disaster, and
governmental incompetence, resulting from lack of national
preparation, due to the obstinate and blind prepossessions of the
Government, and, in part, of the people.

This was so even upon the water, despite the great names--for great
they were in measure of their opportunities--of Decatur, Hull, Perry,
Macdonough, Morris, and a dozen others. On shore things were far
worse; for while upon the water the country had as leaders men still
in the young prime of life, who were both seamen and officers,--none
of those just named were then over forty,--the army at the beginning
had only elderly men, who, if they ever had been soldiers in any truer
sense than young fighting men,--soldiers by training and
understanding,--had long since disacquired whatever knowledge and
habit of the profession they had gained in the War of Independence,
then more than thirty years past. "As far as American movements are
concerned," said one of Wellington's trusted officers, sent to report
upon the subject of Canadian defence, "the campaign of 1812 is almost
beneath criticism."[391] Instructed American opinion must sorrowfully
admit the truth of the comment. That of 1813 was not much better,
although some younger men--Brown, Scott, Gaines, Macomb, Ripley--were
beginning to show their mettle, and there had by then been placed at
the head of the War Department a secretary who at least possessed a
reasoned understanding of the principles of warfare. With every
material military advantage, save the vital one of adequate
preparation, it was found too late to prepare when war was already at
hand; and after the old inefficients had been given a chance to
demonstrate their incapacity, it was too late to utilize the young
men.

Jefferson, with curious insanity of optimism, had once written, "We
begin to broach the idea that we consider the whole Gulf Stream as of
our waters, within which hostilities and cruising are to be frowned on
for the present, and prohibited as soon as either consent or force
will permit;"[392] while at the same time, under an unbroken
succession of maritime humiliations, he of purpose neglected all naval
preparation save that of two hundred gunboats, which could not venture
out of sight of land without putting their guns in the hold. With like
blindness to the conditions to which his administration had reduced
the nation, he now wrote: "The acquisition of Canada this year [1812],
as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of
marching."[393] This would scarcely have been a misappreciation, had
his care for the army and that of his successor given the country in
1812 an effective force of fifteen thousand regulars. Great Britain
had but forty-five hundred in all Canada,[394] from Quebec to St.
Joseph's, near Mackinac; and the American resources in militia were to
hers as ten to one. But Jefferson and Madison, with their Secretary of
the Treasury, had reduced the national debt between 1801 and 1812 from
$80,000,000 to $45,000,000, concerning which a Virginia Senator
remarked: "This difference has never been felt by society. It has
produced no effect upon the common intercourse among men. For my part,
I should never have known of the reduction but for the annual Treasury
Report."[395] Something was learned about it, however, in the first
year of the war, and the interest upon the savings was received at
Detroit, on the Niagara frontier, in the Chesapeake and the Delaware.

The War of 1812 was very unpopular in certain sections of the United
States and with certain parts of the community. By these, particular
fault was found with the invasion of Canada. "You have declared war, it
was said, for two principal alleged reasons: one, the general policy of
the British Government, formulated in the successive Orders in Council,
to the unjustifiable injury and violation of American commerce; the
other, the impressment of seamen from American merchant ships. What
have Canada and the Canadians to do with either? If war you must, carry
on your war upon the ocean, the scene of your avowed wrongs, and the
seat of your adversary's prosperity, and do not embroil these innocent
regions and people in the common ruin which, without adequate cause,
you are bringing upon your own countrymen, and upon the only nation
that now upholds the freedom of mankind against that oppressor of our
race, that incarnation of all despotism--Napoleon." So, not without
some alloy of self-interest, the question presented itself to New
England, and so New England presented it to the Government and the
Southern part of the Union; partly as a matter of honest conviction,
partly as an incident of the factiousness inherent in all political
opposition, which makes a point wherever it can.

Logically, there may at first appear some reason in these arguments.
We are bound to believe so, for we cannot entirely impeach the candor
of our ancestors, who doubtless advanced them with some degree of
conviction. The answer, of course, is, that when two nations go to
war, all the citizens of one become internationally the enemies of the
other. This is the accepted principle of International Law, a residuum
of the concentrated wisdom of many generations of international
legists. When war takes the place of peace, it annihilates all natural
and conventional rights, all treaties and compacts, except those which
appertain to the state of war itself. The warfare of modern
civilization assures many rights to an enemy, by custom, by precedent,
by compact; many treaties bear express stipulations that, should war
arise between the parties, such and such methods of warfare are
barred; but all these are merely guaranteed exceptions to the general
rule that every individual of each nation is the enemy of those of the
opposing belligerent.

Canada and the Canadians, being British subjects, became therefore,
however involuntarily, the enemies of the United States, when the
latter decided that the injuries received from Great Britain compelled
recourse to the sword. Moreover, war, once determined, must be waged
on the principles of war; and whatever greed of annexation may have
entered into the motives of the Administration of the day, there can
be no question that politically and militarily, as a war measure, the
invasion of Canada was not only justifiable but imperative. "In case
of war," wrote the United States Secretary of State, Monroe, a very
few days[396] before the declaration, "it might be necessary to invade
Canada; not as an object of the war, but as a means to bring it to a
satisfactory conclusion." War now is never waged for the sake of mere
fighting, simply to see who is the better at killing people. The
warfare of civilized nations is for the purpose of accomplishing an
object, obtaining a concession of alleged right from an enemy who has
proved implacable to argument. He is to be made to yield to force what
he has refused to reason; and to do that, hold is laid upon what is
his, either by taking actual possession, or by preventing his
utilizing what he still may retain. An attachment is issued, so to
say, or an injunction laid, according to circumstances; as men in law
do to enforce payment of a debt, or abatement of an injury. If, in the
attempt to do this, the other nation resists, as it probably will,
then fighting ensues; but that fighting is only an incident of war.
War, in substance, though not perhaps in form, began when the one
nation resorted to force, quite irrespective of the resistance of the
other.

Canada, conquered by the United States, would therefore have been a
piece of British property attached; either in compensation for claims,
or as an asset in the bargaining which precedes a treaty of peace. Its
retention even, as a permanent possession, would have been justified
by the law of war, if the military situation supported that course.
This is a political consideration; militarily, the reasons were even
stronger. To Americans the War of 1812 has worn the appearance of a
maritime contest. This is both natural and just; for, as a matter of
fact, not only were the maritime operations more pleasing to
retrospect, but they also were as a whole, and on both sides, far more
efficient, far more virile, than those on land. Under the relative
conditions of the parties, however, it ought to have been a land war,
because of the vastly superior advantages on shore possessed by the
party declaring war; and such it would have been, doubtless, but for
the amazing incompetency of most of the army leaders on both sides,
after the fall of the British general, Brock, almost at the opening of
hostilities. This incompetency, on the part of the United States, is
directly attributable to the policy of Jefferson and Madison; for had
proper attention and development been given to the army between 1801
and 1812, it could scarcely have failed that some indication of men's
fitness or unfitness would have preceded and obviated the lamentable
experience of the first two years, when every opportunity was
favorable, only to be thrown away from lack of leadership. That even
the defects of preparation, extreme and culpable as these were, could
have been overcome, is evidenced by the history of the Lakes. The
Governor General, Prevost, reported to the home government in July and
August, 1812, that the British still had the naval superiority on Erie
and Ontario;[397] but this condition was reversed by the energy and
capacity of the American commanders, Chauncey, Perry, and Macdonough,
utilizing the undeniable superiority in available resources--mechanics
and transportation--which their territory had over the Canadian, not
for naval warfare only, but for land as well.

The general considerations that have been advanced are sufficient to
indicate what should have been the general plan of the war on the part
of the United States. Every war must be aggressive, or, to use the
technical term, offensive, in military character; for unless you
injure the enemy, if you confine yourself, as some of the grumblers of
that day would have it, to simple defence against his efforts,
obviously he has no inducement to yield your contention. Incidentally,
however, vital interests must be defended, otherwise the power of
offence falls with them. Every war, therefore, has both a defensive
and an offensive side, and in an effective plan of campaign each must
receive due attention. Now, in 1812, so far as general natural
conditions went, the United States was relatively weak on the sea
frontier, and strong on the side of Canada. The seaboard might,
indeed, in the preceding ten years, have been given a development of
force, by the creation of an adequate navy, which would have
prevented war, by the obvious danger to British interests involved in
hostilities. But this had not been done; and Jefferson, by his gunboat
policy, building some two hundred of those vessels, worthless unless
under cover of the land, proclaimed by act as by voice his adherence
to a bare defensive. The sea frontier, therefore, became mainly a line
of defence, the utility of which primarily was, or should have been,
to maintain communication with the outside world; to support commerce,
which in turn should sustain the financial potency that determines the
issues of war.

The truth of this observation is shown by one single fact, which will
receive recurrent mention from time to time in the narrative. Owing
partly to the necessities of the British Government, and partly as a
matter of favor extended to the New England States, on account of
their antagonism to the war, the commercial blockade of the coast was
for a long time--until April 25, 1814--limited to the part between
Narragansett Bay and the boundary of Florida, then a Spanish colony.
During this period, which Madison angrily called one of "invidious
discrimination between different parts of the United States," New
England was left open to neutral commerce, which the British, to
supply their own wants, further encouraged by a system of licenses,
exempting from capture the vessels engaged, even though American.
Owing largely to this, though partly to the local development of
manufactures caused by the previous policy of restriction upon foreign
trade, which had diverted New England from maritime commerce to
manufactures, that section became the distributing centre of the
Union. In consequence, the remainder of the country was practically
drained of specie, which set to the northward and eastward, the
surplusage above strictly local needs finding its way to Canada, to
ease the very severe necessities of the British military authorities
there; for Great Britain, maintaining her own armies in the Spanish
peninsula, and supporting in part the alliance against Napoleon on the
Continent, could spare no coin to Canada. It could not go far south,
because the coasting trade was destroyed by the enemy's fleets, and
the South could not send forward its produce by land to obtain money
in return. The deposits in Massachusetts banks increased from
$2,671,619, in 1810, to $8,875,589, in 1814; while in the same years
the specie held was respectively $1,561,034 and $6,393,718.[398]

It was a day of small things, relatively to present gigantic
commercial enterprises; but an accumulation of cash in one quarter,
coinciding with penury in another, proves defect in circulation
consequent upon embarrassed communications. That flour in Boston sold
for $12.00 the barrel, while at Baltimore and Richmond it stood at
$6.50 and $4.50, tells the same tale of congestion and deficiency, due
to interruption of water communication; the whole proving that, under
the conditions of 1812, as the United States Government had allowed
them to become, through failure to foster a navy by which alone coast
defence in the true sense can be effected, the coast frontier was
essentially the weak point. There Great Britain could put forth her
enormous naval strength with the most sensible and widespread injury
to American national power, as represented in the financial stability
which constitutes the sinews of war. Men enough could be had; there
were one hundred thousand registered seamen belonging to the country;
but in the preceding ten years the frigate force had decreased from
thirteen of that nominal rate to nine, while the only additions to the
service, except gunboats, were two sloops of war, two brigs, and four
schooners. The construction of ships of the line, for six of which
provision had been made under the administration which expired in
1801, was abandoned immediately by its successor. There was no navy
for defence.

Small vessels, under which denomination most frigates should be
included, have their appropriate uses in a naval establishment, but in
themselves are inadequate to the defence of a coast-line, in the true
sense of the word "defence." It is one of the first elements of
intelligent warfare that true defence consists in imposing upon the
enemy a wholesome fear of yourself. "The best protection against the
enemy's fire," said Farragut, "is a rapid fire from our own guns." "No
scheme of defence," said Napoleon, "can be considered efficient that
does not provide the means of attacking the enemy at an opportune
moment. In the defence of a river, for instance," he continues, "you
must not only be able to withstand its passage by the enemy, but must
keep in your own hands means of crossing, so as to attack him, when
occasion either offers, or can be contrived." In short, you must
command either a bridge or a ford, and have a disposable force ready
to utilize it by attack. The fact of such preparation fetters every
movement of the enemy.

At its very outbreak the War of 1812 gave an illustration of the
working of this principle. Tiny as was the United States Navy, the
opening of hostilities found it concentrated in a body of several
frigates, with one or two sloops of war, which put to sea together.
The energies of Great Britain being then concentrated upon the navy of
Napoleon, her available force at Halifax and Bermuda was small, and
the frigates, of which it was almost wholly composed, were compelled
to keep together; for, if they attempted to scatter, in order to watch
several commercial ports, they were exposed to capture singly by this
relatively numerous body of American cruisers. The narrow escape of
the frigate "Constitution" from the British squadron at this moment,
on her way from the Chesapeake to New York, which port she was unable
to gain, exemplifies precisely the risk of dispersion that the British
frigates did not dare to face while their enemy was believed to be at
hand in concentrated force. They being compelled thus to remain
together, the ports were left open; and the American merchant ships,
of which a great number were then abroad, returned with comparative
impunity, though certainly not entirely without losses.

This actual experience illustrates exactly the principle of coast
defence by the power having relatively the weaker navy. It cannot,
indeed, drive away a body numerically much stronger; but, if itself
respectable in force, it can compel the enemy to keep united. Thereby
is minimized the injury caused to a coast-line by the dispersion of the
enemy's force along it in security, such as was subsequently acquired
by the British in 1813-14, and by the United States Navy during the
Civil War. The enemy's fears defend the coast, and protect the nation,
by securing the principal benefit of the coast-line--coastwise and
maritime trade, and the revenue thence proceeding. In order, however,
to maintain this imposing attitude, the defending state must hold ready
a concentrated force, of such size that the enemy cannot safely divide
his own--a force, for instance, such as that estimated by Gouverneur
Morris, twenty years before 1812.[399] The defendant fleet, further,
must be able to put to sea at a moment inconvenient to the enemy; must
have the bridge or ford Napoleon required for his army. Such the United
States had in her seaports, which with moderate protection could keep
an enemy at a distance, and from which escape was possible under
conditions exceedingly dangerous for the detached hostile divisions;
but although possessing these bridge heads leading to the scene of
ocean war, no force to issue from them existed. In those eleven
precious years during which Great Britain by American official returns
had captured 917 American ships,[400] a large proportion of them in
defiance of International Law, as was claimed, and had impressed from
American vessels 6,257 seamen,[401] asserted to be mostly American
citizens, the United States had built two sloops of 18 guns, and two
brigs of 16; and out of twelve frigates had permitted three to rot at
their moorings. To build ships of the line had not even been attempted.
Consequently, except when weather drove them off, puny divisions of
British ships gripped each commercial port by the throat with perfect
safety; and those weather occasions, which constitute the opportunity
of the defendant sea power, could not be improved by military action.

Such in general was the condition of the sea frontier, thrown
inevitably upon the defensive. With the passing comment that, had it
been defended as suggested, Great Britain would never have forced the
war, let us now consider conditions on the Canadian line, where
circumstances eminently favored the offensive by the United States;
for this war should not be regarded simply as a land war or a naval
war, nor yet as a war of offence and again one of defence, but as
being continuously and at all times both offensive and defensive, both
land and sea, in reciprocal influence.

Disregarding as militarily unimportant the artificial boundary
dividing Canada from New York, Vermont, and the eastern parts of the
Union, the frontier separating the land positions of the two
belligerents was the Great Lakes and the river St. Lawrence. This
presented certain characteristic and unusual features. That it was a
water line was a condition not uncommon; but it was exceptionally
marked by those broad expanses which constitute inland seas of great
size and depth, navigable by vessels of the largest sea-going
dimensions. This water system, being continuous and in continual
progress, is best conceived by applying to the whole, from Lake
Superior to the ocean, the name of the great river, the St. Lawrence,
which on the one hand unites it to the sea, and on the other divides
the inner waters from the outer by a barrier of rapids, impassable to
ships that otherwise could navigate freely both lakes and ocean.

The importance of the lakes to military operations must always be
great, but it was much enhanced in 1812 by the undeveloped condition
of land communications. With the roads in the state they then were,
the movement of men, and still more of supplies, was vastly more rapid
by water than by land. Except in winter, when iron-bound snow covered
the ground, the routes of Upper Canada were well-nigh impassable; in
spring and in autumn rains, wholly so to heavy vehicles. The mail from
Montreal to York,--now Toronto,--three hundred miles, took a month in
transit.[402] In October, 1814, when the war was virtually over, the
British General at Niagara lamented to the Commander-in-Chief that,
owing to the refusal of the navy to carry troops, an important
detachment was left "to struggle through the dreadful roads from
Kingston to York."[403] "Should reinforcements and provisions not
arrive, the naval commander would," in his opinion, "have much to
answer for."[404] The Commander-in-Chief himself wrote: "The command
of the lakes enables the enemy to perform in two days what it takes
the troops from Kingston sixteen to twenty days of severe marching.
Their men arrive fresh; ours fatigued, and with exhausted equipment.
The distance from Kingston to the Niagara frontier exceeds two hundred
and fifty miles, and part of the way is impracticable for
supplies."[405] On the United States side, road conditions were
similar but much less disadvantageous. The water route by Ontario was
greatly preferred as a means of transportation, and in parts and at
certain seasons was indispensable. Stores for Sackett's Harbor, for
instance, had in early summer to be brought to Oswego, and thence
coasted along to their destination, in security or in peril, according
to the momentary predominance of one party or the other on the lake.
In like manner, it was more convenient to move between the Niagara
frontier and the east end of the lake by water; but in case of
necessity, men could march. An English traveller in 1818 says: "I
accomplished the journey from Albany to Buffalo in October in six days
with ease and comfort, whereas in May it took ten of great difficulty
and distress."[406] In the farther West the American armies, though
much impeded, advanced securely through Ohio and Indiana to the shores
of Lake Erie, and there maintained themselves in supplies sent
over-country; whereas the British at the western end of the lake,
opposite Detroit, depended wholly upon the water, although no hostile
force threatened the land line between them and Ontario. The battle of
Lake Erie, so disastrous to their cause, was forced upon them purely
by failure of food, owing to the appearance of Perry's squadron.

From Lake Superior to the head of the first rapid of the St. Lawrence,
therefore, the control of the water was the decisive factor in the
general military situation. Both on the upper lakes, where water
communication from Sault Sainte Marie to Niagara was unbroken, and on
Ontario, separated from the others by the falls of Niagara, the
British had at the outset a slight superiority, but not beyond the
power of the United States to overtake and outpass. Throughout the
rapids, to Montreal, military conditions resembled those which
confront a general charged with the passage of any great river. If
undertaken at all, such an enterprise requires the deceiving of the
opponent as to the place and time when the attempt will be made, the
careful provision of means and disposition of men for instant
execution, and finally the prompt and decisive seizure of opportunity,
to transfer and secure on the opposite shore a small body, capable of
maintaining itself until the bulk of the army can cross to its
support. Nothing of the sort was attempted here, or needed to be
undertaken in this war. Naval superiority determined the ability to
cross above the rapids, and there was no occasion to consider the
question of crossing between them. Immediately below the last lay
Montreal, accessible to sea-going vessels from the ocean. To that
point, therefore, the sea power of Great Britain reached, and there it
ended.

The United States Government was conscious of its great potential
superiority over Canada, in men and in available resources. So
evident, indeed, was the disparity, that the prevalent feeling was not
one of reasonable self-reliance, but of vainglorious self-confidence;
of dependence upon mere bulk and weight to crush an opponent, quite
irrespective of preparation or skill, and disregardful of the factor
of military efficiency. Jefferson's words have already been quoted.
Calhoun, then a youthful member of Congress, and a foremost advocate
of the war, said in March, 1812: "So far from being unprepared, Sir, I
believe that in four weeks from the time a declaration of war is
heard, on our frontier, the whole of Upper Canada"--halfway down the
St. Lawrence--"and a part of Lower Canada will be in our power." This
tone was general in Congress; Henry Clay spoke to the same effect.
Granting due preparation, such might indeed readily have been the
result of a well-designed, active, offensive campaign. Little hope of
any other result was held by the British local officials, and what
little they had was based upon the known want of military efficiency
in the United States. Brock, by far the ablest among them, in February
declared his "full conviction that unless Detroit and Michilimackinac
be both in our possession at the commencement of hostilities, not only
Amherstburg"--on the Detroit River, a little below Detroit--"but most
probably the whole country, must be evacuated as far as
Kingston."[407] This place is at the foot of Ontario, close to the
entrance to the St. Lawrence. Having a good and defensible harbor, it
had been selected for the naval station of the lake. If successful in
holding it, there would be a base of operations for attempting
recovery of the water, and ultimately of the upper country. Failing
there, of course the British must fall back upon the sea, touch with
which they would regain at Montreal, resting there upon the navy of
their nation; just as Wellington, by the same dependence, had
maintained himself at Lisbon unshaken by the whole power of Napoleon.

There was, however, no certainty that the Lisbon of Canada would be
found at Montreal. Though secure on the water side, there were there
no lines of Torres Vedras; and it was well within the fears of the
governors of Canada that under energetic attack their forces would not
be able to make a stand short of Quebec, against the overwhelming
numbers which might be brought against them. In December, 1807,
Governor General Craig, a soldier of tried experience and reputation,
had written: "Defective as it is, Quebec is the only post that can be
considered tenable for a moment. If the Americans should turn their
attention to Lower Canada, which is most probable, I have no hopes
that the forces here can accomplish more than to check them for a
short time. They will eventually be compelled to take refuge in
Quebec, and operations must terminate in a siege."[408] Consequent
upon this report of a most competent officer, much had been done to
strengthen the works; but pressed by the drain of the Peninsular War,
heaviest in the years 1809 to 1812, when France elsewhere was at
peace, little in the way of troops had been sent. As late as November
16, 1812, the Secretary for War, in London, notified Governor General
Prevost that as yet he could give no hopes of reinforcements.[409]
Napoleon had begun his retreat from Moscow three weeks before, but the
full effects of the impending disaster were not yet forecast. Another
three weeks, and the Secretary wrote that a moderate detachment would
be sent to Bermuda, to await there the opening of the St. Lawrence in
the spring.[410] But already the United States had lost Mackinac and
Detroit, and Canada had gained time to breathe.

Brock's remark, expanded as has here been done, defines the decisive
military points upon the long frontier from Lake Superior to Montreal.
Mackinac, Detroit, Kingston, Montreal--these four places, together
with adequate development of naval strength on the lakes--constituted
the essential elements of the military situation at the opening of
hostilities. Why? Mackinac and Detroit because, being situated upon
extremely narrow parts of the vital chain of water communication,
their possession controlled decisively all transit. Held in force,
they commanded the one great and feasible access to the northwestern
country. Upon them turned, therefore, the movement of what was then
its chief industry, the fur trade; but more important still, the