1 Opposing Claims International disputes that end in war are not generally questions of absolute right and wrong. They may quite as well be questions of opposing rights. But when there are rights on both sides it is usually found that the side which takes the initiative is moved by its national desires as well as by its claims of right. This could hardly be better exemplified than by the vexed questions which brought about the war of 1812. The British were fighting for life and liberty against Napoleon. Napoleon was fighting to master the whole of Europe. The United States wished to make as much as possible out of the unrestricted trade with both belligerents. But Napoleon's Berlin decree forbade all intercourse whatever with the British while the British orders and counsel forbade all intercourse whatever with Napoleon and his allies except on condition that the trade should first pass through British ports. Between two such desperate antagonists there is no safe place for an unarmed, independent, free trading neutral. Everyone was forced to take sides. The British being overwhelmingly strong at sea, while the French were correspondingly strong on land, American shipping was bound to suffer more from the British than from the French. The French seized every American vessel that infringed the Berlin decree whenever they managed to do so. But the British seized so many more for infringing the orders and counsel that the Americans naturally began to take sides with the French. Worse still, from the American point of view was the British right of search which meant the right of searching neutral merchant vessels either in British waters or on the high seas for deserters from the Royal Navy. Every other people whose navy could enforce it had always claimed a similar right. But other people's rights had never clashed with American interests in at all the same way. What really roused the American government was not the abstract right of search, but it was its enforcement at a time when so many hands aboard American vessels were British subjects evading service in their own navy. The American theory was that the flag covered the crew wherever the ship might be. Such a theory might well have been made a question for friendly debate and settlement at any other time. But it was a new theory advanced by a new nation whose peculiar and most disturbing entrance on the international scene could not be suffered to upset the accepted state of things during the stress of a life-and-death war. Under existing circumstances the British could not possibly give up their long-established right of search without committing national suicide. Neither could they relax their own blockade so long as Napoleon maintained his. The right of search and the double blockade of Europe thus became two vexed questions which led straight to war. But the American grievances about these two questions were not the only motives impelling the United States to take up arms. There were two deeply rooted national desires urging them on in the same direction. A good many Americans were ready to seize any chance of venting their anti-British feelings. And most Americans thought they would only be fulfilling their proper destiny by resting the whole of Canada from the British crown. These two national desires worked both ways for war supporting the government case against the British orders and counsel and right of search on one hand while welcoming an alliance with Napoleon on the other. Americans were far from being unanimous and the party in favour of peace was not slow to point out that Napoleon stood for tyranny while the British stood for freedom. But the adherents of the war-party reminded each other, as well as the British and the French, that Britain had rested Canada from France while France had helped to rest the thirteen colonies from the British Empire. As usual in all modern wars there is much official verbiage about the national claims and only unofficial talk about the national desires. But again as usual the claims became the more insistent because of the desires and the desires became the more patriotically respectable because of the claims of right. Free trade and sailors' rights were the popular catchword that best describes the two strong claims of the United States. Along with the British and on to Canada were the phrases that best reveal the two impelling national desires. Both the claims and the desires seemed quite simple in themselves, but in their connection with American politics, international affairs, and opposing British claims they are complex to the last degree. Their complexities indeed are so tortuous and so multitudinous that they baffle description within the limits of the present book. Yet since nothing can be understood without some reference to its antecedents we must take at least a bird's eye view of the growing entanglement which finally resulted in the war of 1812. The relations of the British Empire with the United States passed through four gradually darkening phases between 1783 and 1812, the phases of accommodation, unfriendliness, hostility, and war. Accommodation lasted from the recognition of independence till the end of the century. Unfriendliness then began with President Jefferson and the Democrats. Hostility followed in 1807 during Jefferson's second term when Napoleon's Berlin decree and the British Orders and Council brought American foreign relations into the five-year crisis which ended with the three-year war. William Pitt for the British and John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, are the two principal figures in the accommodation period. In 1783 Pitt, who like his father, the great Earl of Chatham, was favorably disposed towards the American, introduced a temporary measure in the British House of Commons to regulate trade with what was now a foreign country on the most enlarged principles of reciprocal benefit, as well as on terms of the most perfect amity with the United States of America. This bill, which showed the influence of Adam Smith's principles on Pitt's receptive mind, favored American more than any other foreign trade in the mother country, and favored it to a still greater extent in the West Indies. Alone among foreigners the Americans were to be granted the privilege of trading between their own ports and the West Indies in their own vessels and with their own goods on exactly the same terms as the British themselves. The bill was rejected, but in 1794 when the French Revolution was running its course of wild excesses and the British government was even less inclined to trust republics, Jay succeeded in negotiating a temporary treaty which improved the position of American seaborne trade with the West Indies. His government urged him to get explicit statements of principle inserted more especially anything that would make cargoes neutral when under neutral flags. This, however, was not possible, as Jay himself pointed out. That Britain, he said, at this period and involved in war should not admit principles which would impeach the propriety of her conduct in seizing provisions bound to France and enemies' property on board neutral vessels, does not appear to me extraordinary. On the whole Jay did very well to get any treaty through at such a time, and this mere fact shows that the general attitude of the mother country towards her independent children was far from being unfriendly. Unfriendliness began with the new century when Jefferson first came into power. He treated the British navigation laws as if they had been invented on purpose to wrong Americans, though they had been enforced for a hundred and fifty years, and though they had been originally passed at the zenith of Cromwell's career by the only republican government that ever held sway in England. Jefferson said that British policy was so perverse that when he wished to forecast the British line of action on any particular point he would first consider what it ought to be and then infer the opposite. His official opinion was written in the following words. It is not to the moderation or justice of others are we to trust for fair and equal access to market with our productions or for our due share in the transportation of them but to our own means of independence and the firm will to use them. On the subject of impressment or sailor's rights he was clear or still. The simplest rule will be that the vessel being American shall be evidenced that the seamen on board of her are such. This would have prevented the impressment of British seamen, even in British harbors if they were under the American merchant flag, a principle almost as preposterous at that particular time as Jefferson's suggestion that the whole gulf stream should be claimed as of our waters. If Jefferson had been backed by a united public or if his actions had been suited to his words war would have certainly broke out during his second presidential term which lasted from 1805 to 1809 but he was a party man with many political opponents and without unquestioning support from all on his own side and he cordially hated armies, and even a mercantile marine. His idea of an American utopia was a commonwealth with plenty of commerce but no more shipping than could be helped. I trust, he said, that the good sense of our country will see that its greater prosperity depends on a due balance between agriculture, manufacturers, and commerce and not on this protrubent navigation which has kept us in hot water since the commencement of our government. It is essentially necessary for us to have shipping and seamen enough to carry our surplus products to market, but beyond that I do not think we are bound to give it encouragement. This exuberant commerce brings us into collision with other powers in every sea. Notwithstanding such opinions Jefferson stood firm on the question of Sailor's Rights. He refused to approve a treaty that had been signed on the last day of 1806 by his four commissioners in London, chiefly because it provided no precise guarantee against impressement. The British ministers had offered and had sincerely meant to respect all American rights, to issue special instructions against molesting American citizens under any circumstances and to redress every case of wrong, but with a United Nation behind them and an implacable enemy in front they could not possibly give up the right to take British seamen from neutral vessels which were sailing the high seas. The right of search was acknowledged law of nations all round the world, and surrender on this point meant death to the empire they were bound to guard. There no surrender on this vital point was, of course, anathema to Jefferson, yet he would not go beyond verbal fulminations. In the following year, however, he was nearly forced to draw the sword by one of those incidents that will happen during strained relations.  Far down the bay in Hampton Roads the American frigate Chesapeake was fitting out for sea. Twelve miles below her anchorage a small British squadron lay just within Cape Henry, waiting to follow the Frenchman out beyond the three-mile limit. As Jefferson quite justly said, this squadron was enjoying the hospitality of the United States. Presently the Chesapeake got under way, whereupon the British frigate Leopard made sail and cleared the land ahead of her. Ten miles out the Leopard hailed her and sent an officer aboard to show the American Commodore the orders from Admiral Berkeley at Halifax. These orders named certain British deserters as being among the Chesapeake's crew.  Four men were then seized, one was hanged, another died, and the other two were subsequently returned with the apologies of the British government. James Monroe of Monroe Doctrine fame was then American minister in London. Canning, the British foreign minister, who heard the news first, wrote an apology on the spot and promised to make prompt and effectual reparation if Berkeley had been wrong. Although he was wrong, the right of search did not include the right to search a foreign man of war, though unlike the modern right of search, which is confined to cargos, it did include the right to search a neutral merchant man on the high seas for any national who was wanted. Canning, however, distinctly stated that the man's nationality would affect the consideration of restoring them or not. Monroe now had a good case, but he made the fatal mistake of writing officially to Canning before he knew the details, and were still of diluting his arguments with other complaints which had nothing to do with the affair itself. The result was a long and involved correspondence, a tardy and ungracious reparation, and much justifiable resentment on the American side. Unfriendliness soon became hostility after the Chesapeake affair had sharpened the sting of the orders in council which had been issued at the beginning of the same year, 1807. These celebrated orders simply meant that so long as Napoleon tried to blockade the British Isles by enforcing his Berlin decree, just so long would the British Navy be employed in blockading him and his allies. Such decisive action, of course, brought neutral shipping more than ever under the power of the British Navy, which commanded all the seaways to the ports of Europe. It accentuated the differences between the American and British governments and through the shadow of the coming storm over the exposed colony of Canada. Not having succeeded in his struggle for sailor's rights, Jefferson now took up the cudgels for free trade, but still without a resort to arms. His chosen means of warfare was an embargo act, forbidding the departure of vessels from United States ports. This, although nominally aimed against France as well, was designed to make Great Britain submit by cutting off both her and her colonies from all intercourse with the United States. But its actual effect was to hurt Americans and even Jefferson's own party far more than it hurt the British. The Yankee skipper already had two blockades against free trade. The embargo act added a third. Of course it was evaded and a good deal of shipping went from the United States and passed into Canadian ports under the Union check. Jefferson and his followers, however, persisted in taking their own way, so Canada gained from the embargo much of what the Americans were losing. Quebec and Halifax swarmed with contrabandists who smuggled back returned cargos into the New England ports, which were Federalists in party allegiance, and only too ready to evade or defy the edicts of the Democratic administration. Jefferson had, it is true, the satisfaction of inflicting much temporary hardship on cotton-spinning Manchester, but the American cotton-growing South suffered even more. The American claims of free trade and sailors' rights were opposed by the British counterclaims of the orders and counsel and the right of search. But down with the British, and on to Canada, were without exact equivalents on the other side. The British at home were a good deal irritated by so much unfriendliness and hostility between them while they were engaged with Napoleon in front. Yet they could hardly be described as anti-American, and they certainly had no wish to fight, still less to conquer, the United States. Canada did contain an anti-American element in the United Empire loyalists, whom the American Revolution had driven from their homes. But her general wish was to be left in peace, failing that she was prepared for defence. Anti-British feeling probably animated at least two-thirds of the American people on every question that caused international friction, and the Jeffersonian Democrats who were in power were anti-British to a man. So strong was this feeling among them that they continued to side with France even when she was under the military despotism of Napoleon. He was the arch-enemy of England and Europe. They were the arch-enemy of England and America. This alone was enough to overcome their natural repugnance to his autocratic ways. Their position towards the British was such that they could not draw back from France, whose change of government had made her a more efficient, anti-British friend. Let us unite with France and stand or fall together was the cry of the democratic press repeated for years in different forms. It was strangely prophetic. Jefferson's embargo act of 1808 began its self-injurious career at the same time that the Peninsular War began to make the first injurious breach in Napoleon's continental system. Madison's declaration of war in 1812 coincided with the opening of Napoleon's disastrous campaign in Russia. The Federalists, the party in favour of peace with the British, included many of the men who had done most for independence, and they were all, of course, above suspicion as patriotic Americans. But they were not unlike transatlantic, self-governing Englishmen. They had been alienated by the excesses of the French Revolution, and they could not condone the tyranny of Napoleon. They preferred American statesmen, of the type of Washington and Hamilton, to those of the type of Jefferson and Madison, and they were not inclined to be more anti-British than the occasion required. They were strongest in New England and New York. The Democrats were strongest throughout the south and in what was then the west. The Federalists had been empowered during the accommodation period. The Democrats began with unfriendliness, continued with hostility, and ended with war. The Federalists did not hesitate to speak their mind. Their loss of power had sharpened their tongues, and they were often no more generous to the Democrats and to France than the Democrats were to them and to the British. But on the whole they made for good will on both sides, as well as for a better understanding of each other's rights and difficulties, and so they made for peace. The general current, however, was against them even before the Chesapeake affair, and several additional incidents helped to quicken it afterwards. In 1808 the toast of the President of the United States was received with hisses at a great public dinner in London, given to the leaders of the Spanish revolt against Napoleon by British admirers. In 1811 the British sloop of war, little Belt, was overhauled by the American frigate, President, fifty miles offshore, and forced to strike after losing thirty-two men and being reduced to a mere battered hulk. The vessels came into range after dark. The British seemed to have fired first, and the Americans had the further excuse that they were still smarting under the Chesapeake affair. Then in 1812 an Irish adventurer called Henry, who had been doing some secret service work in the United States at the instance of the Canadian Governor General, sold the duplicates of his correspondence to President Madison. These were of little real importance, but they added fuel to the democratic fire in Congress just when the anti-British feeling was at its worst. The fourth cause of war, the desire to conquer Canada, was by far the oldest of all. It was older than independence, older even than the British conquests of Canada. In 1689 Peter Schiller, Mayor of Albany, and the acknowledged leader of the frontier districts, had set forth his glorious enterprise for the conquest and annexation of New France. Fipp's American invasion next year, carried out in complete independence of the Home Government, had been an utter failure. So had the second American invasion led by Montgomery and Arnold during the Revolutionary War nearly a century later. But the Americans had not forgotten their long desire, and the prospect of another war at once revived their hopes. They honestly believed that Canada would be much better off as an integral part of the United States than as a British colony, and most of them believed that Canadians thought so too. The lesson of the invasion of the Fourteenth Colony during the Revolution had not been learnt. The alacrity with which Canadians had stood to arms after the Chesapeake affair was little heated. And both the nature and the strength of the Union between the Colony and the Empire were almost entirely misunderstood. Henry Clay, one of the most warlike of the Democrats said, It is absurd to suppose that we will not succeed in our enterprise against the enemy's provinces. I am not for stopping at Quebec or anywhere else, but I would take the whole continent from them and ask them no favours. I wish never to see peace till we do. God has given us the power and the means. We are to blame if we do not use them. Eustace, the American Secretary of War, said, We can take Canada without soldiers. We have only to send officers into the provinces, and the people, disaffected towards their own government, will rally round our standard. And Jefferson summed it all up by prophesying that, the acquisition of Canada this year as far as the neighbourhood of Quebec will be a mere matter of marching. When the leaders talked like this it was no wonder the followers thought that the long cherished dream of a conquered Canada was at last about to come true. Chapter 2 of a Chronicle of 1812. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Andy Yu. A Chronicle of 1812 by William Wood, Chapter 2. An armed mob must be very big indeed before it has the slightest chance against a small but disciplined army. So very obvious a statement might well be taken for granted in the history of any ordinary war. But 1812 was not an ordinary war. It was a sprawling and sporadic war, and it was waged over a vast territory by widely scattered and singularly heterogeneous forces on both sides. For this reason it is extremely difficult to view and understand as one connected whole. Partisan representations has never had a better chance. Americans have dwelt with justifiable pride on the flickered duels out at sea and the two fertility battles on the lakes.  The mother country British, on the other hand, have made too much of the one important victory at sea, have passed too lightly over the lessons of the other duels there and have forgotten how long it took to sweep the stars and the Americans' drives away from the Atlantic. Canadians have, of course, devoted most attention to the British victories, one in the frontier campaigns on land, which the other British have heeded too little and Americans have been only two anxious to forget. Finally, neither the Canadians nor the mother country British nor yet the Americans have often tried to take a comprehensive view of all the operations by land and sea together. The character and numbers of the opposing forces have been even less considered and even more misunderstood. Malaysia victories have been freely claimed by both sides in defiance of the fact that the regulars were the really decisive factor in every single victory, won by either side, afloat or ashore. The popular notions about the numbers concerned are equally wrong. The totals were far greater than is generally known. Counting every man who ever appeared on either side by land or sea within the actual theater of war, the United Grand Total reaches 700,000. This was most unevenly divided between the two opponents. The Americans had about 575,000. The British about 125,000. But such a striking difference in numbers was matched by an equally striking difference in discipline and training. The Americans had more than four times as many men. The British had more than four times as much discipline and training. The forces on the American side were a small navy and a swarm of privateers, a small regular army, a few volunteers, still fewer rangers and a vast conglomeration of raw militia. The British had a detachment from the greatest navy in the world, a very small provincial marine on the lakes and the St. Lawrence besides various little subsidiary services afloat, including privateers. Their army consisted of a very small but largely much increased contention of imperial regulars, a few Canadian regulars, more Canadian militia and a very few Indians. Let us pass all these forces in review. The American navy during the revolution, the infant navy had begun a career of brilliant promise and Paul Jones had been named to conjure with.  But it was really the founder of the regular navy that fought so gallantly in 1812. A tradition had been created and a service had been formed. Political opinion, however, discouraged proper growth. President Jefferson laid down the Democratic Party's idea of naval policy in its first inaugural. Beyond the small force which will probably be wanted for actual service in the Mediterranean, whatever annual sum you may think proper to appropriate your naval preparations would perhaps be better employed in providing those articles which may be kept without waste or consumption and be in readiness when any exceptions cause them into use. Progress has been made in providing materials for 74 gun ships, footnote, a ship of the line meaning battleship or men of war. Strong enough to take a position in the line of battle was of a different minimum size at different periods. The tendency towards increase of size existed a century ago as well as today. Fourth race of 50 and 60 guns dropped out of the line at the beginning of the Seven Years War. In 1812 the 74 gun three-decker was the smallest men of war regularly used in the line of battle. This progress had been made in 1801 but in 1812 when Jefferson's disciple Madison formally declared war not a single keel had been laid. Meanwhile another idea of naval policy had been worked out into the ridiculous gunboat system. In 1807 during the crisis which followed the Berlin Decree the orders in council and the Chesapeake affair Jefferson wrote to Thomas Paynes believing myself that gunboats are the only water defense which can be useful to us and protect us from the ruinous folly of a Navy. I am pleased with everything which promises to improve them whether improved or not these gunboats were found worse than useless as a substitute for the ruinous folly of a Navy. They failed aggressively to stop Jefferson's own countrymen from breaking his embargo act of 1808 and their weatherly qualities were so contemptible that they do not dare to lose sight of land without putting their guns in their hold. No wonder the practical men of the Navy called them Jeffs. When President Madison summoned Congress in 1811 war was the main topic of debate yet all he had to say about the Navy was contained in 27 lukewarm words. Congress followed the presidential lead the momentous naval vote of 1812 provided for an expenditure of $600,000 which was to be spread over three consecutive years and strictly limited to buying timber. Then on the outbreak of war the government consistent to the last decided to lay up the whole of the sea going Navy lest it should be captured by the British but this final indignity was more than the Navy could stand in silence some senior officers spoke their minds and the party politicians gave way. The result was a series of victories which of their own peculiar kind have never been eclipsed. Not one American ship of the line was ever afloat during the war and only 22 flickers or smaller naval claves put out to sea in addition there were the three little Frotillas on Lake Erie, Ontario and Champagne and a few minor vessels elsewhere. All the clues together did not exceed 10,000 men replacements included yet even with these niggas means the American Navy won the command of two completely held in the command of the third in suspense won every important duel out at sea except the famous fight against the Shannon inflicted serious loss on British seaborn trade and kept a greatly superior British naval force employed on constant and harassing duty. The American privateers besides the little Navy there were 526 privately owned vessels which were officially authorized to prey on the enemy's trade these were manned by 40,000 excellent seamen and had the chance of pundering the richest seaborn commerce in the world. They certainly harassed British commerce even in its own home waters and during the course of the war they captured no less than 1,344 prices but they did practically nothing towards reducing the British fighting force afloat and even at their own work of commerce destroying they did less than a third as much as the Navy in proportion to their numbers. The American army the army had competed with the Navy for the lowest place in Jefferson's inaugural of 1801 this is the only government where every man will meet in wations of the public order as his own personal concern. A well-disciplined order is our best reliance for the first moments of war till regulars may believe them the army was then reduced to 3,000 men such were the results of Mr Jefferson's low estimate of or rather contempt for the military character said General Winfield Scott the best officer the United States produced in 1812 and the Civil War in 1808 an additional military force was authorized. In January 1812 after war had been virtually decided on the establishment was raised to 35,000 but in June when war had been declared less than a quarter of this total could be called and more than half were still wanting to compete the grand total of all American regulars including those present with the colors on outbreak of hostilities as well as those raised during the war amounted to 56,000 yet no general has 6,000 actually in the filing line of any one engagement the United States warrantiers 10,000 warrantiers were raised from first to last they differed from the regulars in being enlisted for shorter terms of service and in being generally allowed to elect their own regimental officers. Theoretically they were furnished in fixed quotas by the different states according to population. They resembled the regulars in other respects especially in being directly under federal not state authority the ranges 3,000 men with the real or supposed knowledge of backwards life served in a war. They operated in groups and formed a very unequal force good, bad and indifferent. Some were under the federal authority, others belong to the different states. As a distinct class they had no appreciable inference on the major results of the war. The militia the vast bulk of the American forces more than 3 quarters of the grand total by land and sea of the militia belonging to the different states of the Union. These militia men could not be moved outside of their respective states without state authority and individual consent was also necessary to prolong a term of enlistment even if the term should come to an end in the middle of a battle. Some enlisted for several months, others for no more than one very few had any military knowledge whatever and most of the officers were no better trained than the men. The totals from all the different states amounted to 456,463 not half of these ever got near the front and half of those who get there ever came into action at all. Except at New Orleans where the conditions were quite abnormal the militia never really helped to decide the issue of any battle except indeed against their own army. The militia there upon broken thread recurs by some frequency in numberless dispatches yet the consequent charges of cowardice are nearly all unjust. The fellow countrymen of those sailors who fought the American Frickers so magnificently were no special kind of cowards but as a royal militia they simply were to well trained regulars what children are to men. American non-combatant services there were more than 50,000 deaths reported on the American side yet not 10,000 men were killed or mortally wounded in all the battle put together. The medical department like the commissariat and transport was only organized at the very last minute even among the regulars then in a most haphazard way. Among the militia this indispensable branches of service were never really organized at all. Such disastrous shortcomings were not caused by any lack of national resources. The population of the United States was about 8 millions as against 18 millions in the British Empire. Prosperity was general at all events up to the time that it was checked by Jefferson's embargo act. The finances were also thought to be most satisfactory. On the very eve of war the secretary of the treasury reported that the national debt had been reduced by 46 million dollars since this party had come into power. Had this war party spent those millions on its army and navy the war itself might have an ending more satisfactory to the United States. Let us now review the forces on the British side the 18 million people in the British Isles were naturally anxious to avoid war with the 8 million in the United States. They had enough on their hands as it was. The British navy was being kept at a greater strength than ever before though it was none too strong for the vast amount of work it had to do. The British army was waging its greatest peninsula campaign all the other naval and military services of what was already a worldwide empire had to be maintained. One of the most momentous crisis in the world's history was fast approaching. For Napoleon arch enemy of England and mightiest of modern Congress was marching on Russia with 500,000 men. Nor was this all there were troubles at home as well as dangers abroad.  It was no time to take on a new enemy 8 million strong especially one who supplied so many stable products during peace and threatened both the sea flank of the mother country and the land flank of Canada during the war. Canada was then little more than a long weak line of settlements on the northern frontier of the United States. Counting in the maritime provinces the population hardly exceeded 500,000 as many people all together as there were soldiers in one of Napoleon's armies or Americans enlisted for service in this very war. Nearly two-thirds of this half million were French Canadians in lower Canada now the province of Quebec. They were loyal to the British cause knowing they could not live a French Canadian life except within the British Empire. The population of Upper Canada now Ontario was less than 100,000. The Anglo-Canadians in it were of two kinds British immigrants and United Empire loyalists with sons and grandsons of each. Both kinds were loyal but the UELs were anti-American through and through especially in regard to the war and democratic party then in power. They could therefore be depended on to fight the last against an enemy who having driven them into exile once was now coming to rest the second New World home from its to the British crown. They and their descendants in all parts of Canada numbered more than half the Anglo-Canadian population in 1812. The few thousand Indians near the scene of action naturally sided with the British who treated them better and dispossessed them less than the Americans did. The only judgmental part of the population was the 25,000 Americans who simply used Canada as a good ground for exploitation and who would have preferred to see it under the stars and stripes provided that the change put no restriction on their business opportunities. The British Navy 1,000 men of the British Navy only a fifth of the whole service appeared within the American Theatre of War from first to last. This oldest and greatest of all navies had recently emerged triumphant from an age-long struggle for the command of the sea but partly because of its very numbers and vast heritage of fame. It was suffering acutely from several forms of weaknesses. Almost 20 years of continuous war with dull blockage during the last seven was enough to make any service go stale. Owing to the enormous losses, recruiting had become exceedingly and incessantly difficult. Even compulsory recruiting was found by press gang. At the same time Nelson's victories had filled the ordinary run of naval men with an over-winning confidence in their own invincibility and this over-confidence had become more than usually dangerous because of neglected gunnery and shipbuilding. The Admiralty had cut down the supply of practice ammunition and had allowed British ships to lag far behind those of other nations in material and design. The general inferiority of British shipbuilding was such an unwelcome truth to the British people that they would not believe it till the American frigates drove it home with shattering broadsides but it was a very old truth for all that. Nelson's captains and those of still earlier wars had always competed eagerly for the command of the better built French prices which they managed to take only because the superiority of the clues was great enough to overcome the inferiority of the ships. There was a different tale to tell when inferior British vessels with run-down clues met superior American vessels with first-rate clues. In those days training and discipline were better than the American mercantile marine than in the British and the American Navy of course shared in the national efficiency at sea thus with cheap materials good designs and excellent seamen the Americans started with great advantages over the British for single ship and was sometime before the small collection of ships succumbed to the grinding pressure of the regularly organized British fleet. The Provincial Marine Canada had a little local Navy on the lakes called the Provincial Marine it dated from the conquest and had done service again during the revolution. Especially in Carlton's victory over Arnold on Lake Champagne in 1776 it had not however been kept up as a proper naval force but had been placed under the quartermaster general's department of the army where it had been mostly degraded into a mere branch of the transport service. At one time the effective force had been reduced to 132 men though many more were added just before the war. Most senior officers were too old and none of the juniors had enjoyed any real training for combatant duties still many of the ships and men did well in the war though they never formed a single properly organized squadron British privateers. Privateering was not a forcing business in the mother country in 1812. Prime seamen were scarce owing to the great number needed in the Navy and in the mercantile marines many too had deserted to get the higher wages paid in Yankees' daughters for shillings as the saying went besides there was little foreign trade left to prey on Canadian privateers did better they were really all blue noses that is they hailed from the maritime provinces during the three campaigns the court of vice admiralty at Halifax issued letters of marquee to 44 privateers which employed including replacements about 3000 men and reported to over 300 private prices British commissariat and transport transport of course went chiefly by water reinforcement and supplies from the mother country came out under convoy mostly in summer to Quebec where bulk was broken and when both men and there were plenty of experts in Canada to move goods west in ordinary times the best of all were the French Canadians voyageeers who manned the boats of the Hudson's Bay and northwest companies but there were not enough of them to carry on the work of peace and war together and skillful efforts however were made schooners, battle boats and canoes were all turned to good account but the inland line of communication was desperately long and difficult to work it was more than 1200 miles from Quebec to Amherstburg on the river Detroit in the shortest route. The British army like the navy had to maintain an exacting worldwide service besides large contingents in the field on resources which had been severely strained by 20 years of war it was represented in Canada by only a little over 4000 effective men when the war began. Reinforcements at first came slowly and in small numbers in 1813 some foreign corps in British pay like the Walterville and the Neuron regiments came out but in 1814 more than 16,000 men mostly peninsular veterans arrived all together including every man present in any part of Canada during the whole war there were over 25,000 British regulars in addition to these there were the troops invading the United States at Washington and Baltimore with the reinforcements that joined them for the attack on New Orleans and all nearly 9,000 men the grand total within the theater of war was therefore about 34,000 the Canadian regulars were about 4,000 strong. Another 2,000 took the place of men who were lost to the service making the total 6,000 there were 6 corps raised for permanent service the Royal Newfoundland Regiment the New Brunswick Regiment the Canadian Fensibles the Royal Veterans and the Grand Garry Light Infantry the Grand Garries were mostly Highland Roman Catholics they built a Grand Garry County on the Ottawa where Ontario marches with Quebec the Votegers were French Canadians under a French Canadian officer in the Imperial Army in the other corps there were many United Empire loyalists from the different provinces including a good stiffening of all soldiers and their sons the Canadian embodied militia the Canadian militia by law comprised every able-bodied men except a few specially exempt like the clergy and the judges 100,000 adult males were liable for service various courses however combined to prevent half of these from getting under arms those who actually did duty were divided into embodied and sedentary corps the embodied militia consisted of picked men drafted for special service they were approximated so closely to the regulars in discipline and training that they may be classed at the very least as semi-regulars counting all those who passed into the special reserve during the war as well as those who went to fill up the flanks after losses of these highly trained semi-regular militiamen engaged in a war the Canadian sedentary militia the sedentaries comprised the rest of the militia the number under arms fluctuated greatly so did the length of time on duty there were never 10,000 employed at any one time over the country as a rule the sedentaries did duty at the base thus releasing the better trained men of service at the front many had the blood of soldiers and nearly all had the priceless advantage of being kept in constant touch with the regulars a passionate devotion to the cause also helped them to acquire sooner than most other men both military knowledge and that the spirit of discipline which after all is nothing but self-sacrifice in the finest patriotic form the Indians sided with the British remained neutral they were however a very uncertain force and the total number that actually served at the front throughout the war certainly fell short of 5,000 this completes the estimate of the opposing forces of the more than half a million Americans 125,000 British with these great odds entirely reversed whenever the comparison is made not between mere quantities of men but between their respective degrees of discipline and training but it does not complete the comparison between the available resources of the two opponents in one most important particular finance the Army Bill Act passed at Quebec on August 1st, 1812 was the greatest single financial event in the history of Canada it was also full of provincial significance for the parliament of lower Canada was overwhelmingly French Canadian it was summarized for issue together with interest at 6% pledged that province to the equivalence of four years revenue the risk was no light one but it was nobly run and well rewarded these Army bills were the first paper money in the whole new world that never lost face value for a day so the statutory interest and that were finally redeemed at par the denominations ran from $1 up to $400 bills of $123 and $4 could always be cashed at the Army Bill Office in Quebec after they noticed the whole issue was redeemed in November 1816 a special feature well worth noting is the fact that Army bills sometimes commanded a premium of 5% over gold itself because being convertible into government bills of exchange on London they were secure against any fluctuations a special comparison well worth making is that between their own remarkable stability and the equally remarkable instability of similar instruments of finance in the United States where after finally trying to help the government through its difficulties every bank outside of New England was forced to suspend special payments in 1814 the year of the great blockade end of chapter 2 recording by Andy Yu Mississauga Canada chapter 3 of a chronicle of 1812 this is a liberal walks recording all liberal walks recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liberal walks.org recording by Andy Yu a chronicle of 1812 by William Wood chapter 3 President Madison sent his message to Congress on the 1st of June and signed the resultant war bill on the 18th following Congress was as much divided as the nation on the question of peace or war the vote in the House of Representatives was 79 to 49 while in the Senate it was 19 to 13 the government itself was solid but it did little enough to make up for the lack of national whole-heartedness by any efficiency of its own. Madison was less zealous about the war than most of his party he was no pit or Lincoln to ride the storm but a respectable lawyer politician whose forte was writing arguments not wielding his country's sword nor had he in his cabinet a single statesman with a genius for making war his war secretary William Eustace never grabs the military situation at all and had to be replaced by John Armstrong after the egregious failures of the first campaign during the war debate in June Eustace was asked to report to Congress how many of the additional 25,000 men authorized in January had already been enlisted the best answer he could make was a purely unofficial opinion that the number was believed to exceed 5,000 the first move to the front was made by the Navy under very strong pressure the cabinet had given up the original idea of putting ships under a glass case and four days after the declaration of war orders were sent to the senior naval officer Commodore Rogers to protect our return commerce by scattering his ships about the American coast just where the British squadron at Halifax would be most likely to defeat them one by one happily for the United States these orders were too late Rogers had already sailed he was a man of action his little squadron of three frikas, one sloop and one break lay in the port of New York already waiting for the word and when news of the declaration arrived he sailed within an hour and set out in pursuit of a British squadron that was convoying a fleet of merchantmen from the West Indies to England he missed the convoy which worked into Liverpool, Bristol and London by getting to the north of him but for all that his sudden dash into British waters with an active concentrated squadron the news an excellent effect the third day out the British frigate Belvedere met him and had to run for her life into Halifax the news of this American squadron being at large spread alarm all over the routes between Canada and the outside world Rogers turned south within a few hours sail this channel turned west off Madeira gave Halifax a wide berth and reached Boston 10 weeks out from Sandy Hook we have been so completely occupied in looking out for Governor Rogers, wrote the British naval officer that we have taken very few prices even Madison was constrained to admit that this offensive move had had the decisive results he had hoped to reach in his own defensive way our trade has reached our ports having been much favored by a squadron under Commodore Rogers the policy of squadron cruising was continued throughout the autumn and winter of 1812 there were no squadron battles but there was unity of purpose and British convoys were harassed over the Atlantic till well on into the next year during this period there were five famous duels which have made the Constitution and the United States the Hornet and the Wharves four names to conjure with wherever these bars and stripes are thrown the Constitution forged the first when she took the query in August due east of Boston and south of Newfoundland the Wharves won the Saturn in September by taking the Floric halfway between Halifax and Bermuda the United States won the third in October by defeating the South West of Madeira the Constitution won the fourth in December of Bahia in Brazil by defeating the Java and the Hornet won the fifth in February by taking the peacock of the Marara on the coast of British Guyana this closed the first period of the war at sea the British government had been so anxious to avoid war and to patch up peace again after war had broken out that they purposely refrained from putting forth the full available naval strength till 1813 at the same time they would naturally have preferred victory to defeat and the fact that peace of the British Navy was engaged elsewhere and that what was available was partly held in leash by no means dims the glory of those four men of war which the Americans fought with so much bravery and skill and with such well-deserved success no wonder Wellington said peace with the United States was worth having at any honorable price if we could only take some of the damned flickers peace was not to come for another 18 months but though the Americans won a few more duels at sea besides two annihilating fortile victories on the lakes their coast was completely as Napoleon's once the British Navy had begun its concerted movements on a comprehensive scale from that time forward the British began to win the naval war they won no battles and only one duo that has lived in history this dramatic duo fought between the Shannon and the Chesapeake in 1813 was not itself a more decisive victory for the British than previous frigate duels had been for the Americans but it serves better than any other special event to mark the change from the first period when the Americans roved the sea as Congress to the second when they were invaded into impotence having now followed the threat of naval events to a point beyond the other limits of this chapter we must return to the American movements against the Canadian frontier and the British counter movements intended to checkmate them Quebec and Halifax the two great Canadian forces were safe from immediate American attack though Quebec was the ultimate objective of the Americans all through the war but the frontier west of Quebec offered several tempting chances for a vigorous invasion if the American naval and infantry forces could only be made to work together the whole life whether there depended absolutely on her inland waterways if the Americans could cut the line of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes at any critical point the British would lose everything to the west of it and there were several critical points of connection along this line St. Joseph's Island commanding the straits between Lake Superior and Lake Huron was a vital point of contact with all the Indians to the west it was the British counter poise to the American post at Machilly Mechanic which commanded the straits between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan Detroit commanded the waterway between Lake Huron and Lake Erie while the command of the Niagara National ensued the connection between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario at the head of the St. Lawrence guarding the entrance to Lake Ontario stood Kingston Montreal was an important station midway between Kingston and Quebec besides being an excellent base for an army thrown forward against the American frontier was the general base from which all the British forces were directed and supplied quick work by water and land together was essential for American success before the winter even if the Canadians were really so anxious to change their own flag for the stars and stripes but the American government put the cart before the horse the army before the navy and weakened the military forces of invasion by dividing them into two independent commands General Henry Dearborn was appointed commander in chief but only with control over the north eastern country that is New England and New York 30 years earlier Dearborn in the war of independence as a junior officer and he had been Jefferson's secretary of war yet he was not much better trained as a leader than his raw men were as followers and he was now 61 he established his headquarters at Green Bush nearly opposite Albany so that he could advance on Montreal by the line of the Hudson Lichampagne and the Ritual the intended advance however did not take place this year Green Bush was rather recruiting depot and a camp of instruction than the base of an army in the field and the actual campaign had hardly begun the troops went into winter quarters the commander of the north western army was General William Howe and his headquarters were to be destroyed from which Upper Canada was to be quickly overrun without troubling about the cooperation of the navy like Dearborn Howe has served in the war of independence he had been a civilian ever since he was now 59 and his only apparent qualification was his having been governor of Michigan for seven years not until September after two defeats on land was Commodore Chansey ordered to assume command of the naval force on Lake Erie and Ontario the military exertion to obtain control of them this fall even then Lichampagne an essential link both in the frontier system and on Dearborn's proposed line of march was totally forgotten to complete the dispersion of force used this forgot all about the military detachments at the western fort Dearborn now Chicago and Michigan Mechanite important as points of connection with the western tribes were left to the devices of their own in adequate garrisons in 1801 Dearborn himself used this predecessor as secretary of war had recommended a peace strength of 200 men at Michigan Mechanite usually known as Mackinac in 1812 there were not so many at Mackinac and Chicago put together it was not a promising outlook to an American military eye the cart before the horse the thick end of the wedge turned towards the enemy the incompetent men giving disconnected orders on the northern frontier and the western poles neglected but used this was full of self confidence Hull was entrusting his militia men and Dearborn was for the moment surpassing both by proposing to at the same moment against Niagara Kingston and Montreal from the Canadian side the outlook was also dark enough to the trained eye though not for the same reasons the menace here was from an enemy whose general resources exceeded those in Canada by almost 1801 the silver lining to the cloud was the ubiquitous British Navy and the superior training and discipline of the various military forces immediately available for defense the maritime provinces formed a subordinate command based on the strong naval station of Halifax the regular garrison was always maintained by the imperial government they were never invaded or even seriously threatened it was only in 1814 that they came directly into the scene of action and then only as the base from which the invasion of Maine was carried out they must therefore turn to Quebec as the real centre of Canadian defense which indeed it was best fitted to be not only from its strategical situation but from the fact that it was the seat of the governor general and commander-in-chief Sir George Plevels the governor of Nova Scotia Plevels was a professional soldier with an unbremished record in army but though naturally anxious to do well and though very seriously diplomatic he was not the man as we shall often see either to face a military crisis dealing marches on him by negotiation on the outbreak of war he was at headquarters in Quebec dividing his time between his civil and military duties greatly concerned with international diplomacy and always full of caution at York now Toronto in Upper Canada and was meanwhile preparing to checkmate House Northwestern army of Americans which was threatening to invade the province Isaac Brock was not only a soldier born and bred but alone among the leaders on either side he had the priceless gift of genius and was now 42 having been born in Guernsey on October 6, 1769 in the same year as Napoleon and Wellington like the woes and the monk arms the Brock had followed the noble profession of arms for many generations his mother's family less distinguished for the number of soldiers and sailors they had been giving to England ever since the Norman conquest Brock himself when only 29 had commanded the 49th foot in Holland under Sir John Moore the future hero of Corona and Sir Ralph Abercrondie who was so soon to fall victorious in Egypt two years after this he had stood beside another and still greater man at Copenhagen Mighty Nelson who there gave a striking instance of how a subordinate inspired by genius can win the day by disengaging the over caution of a commonplace superior we may be sure that when Nelson turned his blind eye on Parker's signal of recall the lesson was not thrown away on Brock for ten long years of inglorious peace Brock had now been serving in Canada while his comrades in arms were winning distinction on the battlefields of Europe they was partly due to his own excellence he was too good a man to be spared after his first five years were up in 1807 for the era of American hostility had then begun he had always been observant but after 1807 he had redoubled his efforts to learn Canada and learn her therapy people and natural resources products and means of transport armed strength on both sides of the line and the best plan of defense all were studied with unremitting zeal in 1811 he became the acting lieutenant governor and commander of the forces in upper Canada where he soon found out that the members of parliament returned by the American vote were bent on every effort he could make to prepare the province against the impending storm in 1812 on the very day he heard that war had been declared he wished to strike the unready Americans heart and instantly at one of the three accessible points of assembly fought Niagara at the upper end of Lake Ontario opposite Fort George which stood on the other side of the Niagara River at the lower end of Lake Ontario 36 miles from Kingston and on the upper St. Lawrence opposite Fort Prescott but the governor general was a worse from an open act of war against the British because they were hostile to Napoleon and in favor of maintaining peace with the British while Brock himself was soon turned from his purpose by news of house American invasion further west as well as by the necessity of assembling his own floating little parliament at York the nine days sessions from July 27 to August 5th used the indispensable supplies but the suspension of the Happiest Corpus Act as a necessary war measure was prevented by the disloyal minority some of home wish to see the British defeated and all home were ready to break the oath of allegiance whenever it suited them to do so the patriotic majority returned by the United Empire loyalists and all the others who were British born and bred issued an address that echoed the appeal made by Brock himself in the following words we are engaged in an awful and eventful contest by unanimity and dispatch in our councils and by vigor in our operations we may teach the enemy this lesson that a country defended by free men enthusiastically devoted to the cause of their king and constitution can never be conquered on August 5th being a last clear of his immediate duties as a civil governor Brock threw himself honestly into the work of defeating who had crossed over into Canada from Detroit on July the 11th and issued a proclamation at sandwich the following day this proclamation shows admirably the sort of impression which the invaders wish to produce on Canadians the United States are sufficiently powerful to afford you every security consistent with their rights and your expectations I tender you the invaluable blessings of civil political and religious liberty the arrival of an army of French must be hailed by you with a cordial welcome you will be emancipated from tyranny and oppression and restored to the dignified station of free men if contrary to your own interests and the just expectation of my country you should take part in the approaching contest you will be considered and treated as enemies and the horrors and calamities of war will stalk before you if the barbarous and savage policy of Great Britain be pursued and the savages let loose to murder our citizens and butcher our women and children this war will be a war of extermination the first stroke with the Tomahawk the first attempt with the scalping knife will be the signal for one indiscriminate scene of desolation no white man found fighting by the side of an Indian will be taken prisoner instant destruction will be his lot this was war with a vengeance but how felt less confidence than his proclamation was intended to display he knew that while the American government had been warned in January about the necessity of securing the naval land of Lake Erie no steps had yet been taken to secure it ever since the beginning of March when he had written a report based on his seven years experience as governor of Michigan he had been gradually learning that useless was spent on acting in defiance of all sound military advice in April he had accepted his new position very much against his will and better judgment in May he had taken command of the assembling militia men at Dayton in Ohio in June he had been joined by a battalion of inexperienced regulars and now in July he was already feeling the ill effects of having to carry on what should have been an amphibious campaign without assistance of any proper force afloat for on the second ten days before he issue his proclamation at sandwich Lieutenant Rowlett and enterprising French Canadian officer in the provincial Marine had cut his line of communication along the Detroit and had taken an American schooner which contain his official plan of campaign besides a good deal of baggage and stores there were barely 600 British on the line of the Detroit when whole first cross over to sandwich with 2500 men these 600 comprised less than 150 regulars about 300 militia and some 150 Indians yet whole made no decisive effort against the feeble little force of Maldon which was the only defense of Amherstburg by land the distance was nothing only 12 miles south from sandwich he sent a sort of flying column against it but this force went no further than halfway where the Americans were checked at the bridge over the swampy little Riviera or canals by the Indians under Techum Shea the great war chief of home without soon hear more House failure to take Fort Maldon was one fatal mistake his failure to secure his communications southward from Detroit was another apparently yielding to the plebidant American idea that a safe base could be created among plenty Canadians without the trouble of a regular campaign of raiding parties of the teams according to his own account these parties penetrated 60 miles into the settled part of the province according to Brock they ravaged the country as far as the Moravian town but they gained no permanent foothold by the beginning of August House position had already become precarious the Canadians had not proved friendly the raid up the teams and the advance toward Amherstburg had both failed and the first British reinforcement had already begun to arrive this were very small but even a few good help to discourage how and the new British commander Colonel Proctor of the 41st was not yet to be faced by a task beyond his strength worse yet for the Americans Brock might soon be expected from the east the Provincial Marine still held the water line of communication from the south and dire news had just come in from the west the moment Brock had heard of the declaration of war he had sent others post haste to Captain Robbins at St. Joseph's island either to attack the Americans at Michelin Magalac or stand on his own defense Robbins received Brock's orders on the 15th of July the very next day he started for Michelin Magalac with 45 men of the royal veterans 180 French Canadian voyages 400 Indians and two unwieldy iron six pounders surprise was essential to prevent the Americans from destroying this doors and the distance was a good 50 miles but by the most unparalleled excursion of the Canadians who meant the boats we arrived at the place of rendezvous at three o'clock the following morning one of the iron six pounders was then hauled up the heist which to 800 feet and trained on the dumbfounded Americans while the whole British force took post for storming the American commandant Lieutenant Hanks who had only 37 effective men their porn surrendered without firing a shot the news of this bold stroke wildfire through the whole northwest the effect on the Indians was tremendous immediate and holy in favor of the British in the previous November brother known far and wide as the prophet had been defeated on the banks of the tip canoe river of Indiana by general Harrison of home we shall hear in the next campaign this battle those small in itself was looked upon as the typical victory of the dispossessing Americans so the British seizure of mission mech connect was hailed with great joy as being a most effective counter stroke nor was this the only reason for rejoicing mission mech connect and St. George's commanded the two lines of communication between the western wilds and the great lakes so the possession of both by the British was more than a single victory it was a promise of victories to come no wonder how lamented this opening of the hive which let the swarms lose over the wilds on his inward flank and rear he would have felt more uneasy still if he had known what was to happen when captain Keed received his orders at Fort Dearborn Chicago on August 9 whole had order healed to evacuate the fort as soon as possible and rejoin headquarters held had only 66 men not near enough to over all the surrounding Indians news of the approaching evacuation spread quickly during the six days of preparation Americans failed to destroy the strong drink in the fort the Indians got hold of it became ungovernably drunk and killed half of health men before they had gone a mile the rest surrendered and were spared held and his wife were then sent to Mackinac where Roberts treated them very kindly and sent them on to Pittsburgh the whole affair was one between Indians and Americans alone but it was naturally used by the war party to inflame American feeling against all things British while how was writing to Fort Dearborn and hearing bad news from Mackinac he was also getting more and more anxious about his own communications to the south with no safe base in Canada and no safe line of transport by water from Lake Erie to the village of Detroit he decided to clear the road to the southern south beside the Detroit river but this was now no easy task for his undisciplined forces as Colonel Proctor was bench on blocking the same road by sending troops and Indians across the river on August 5th the day Brock provoked his parliament at York detachment of 200 men at Bromstown 18 miles south of Detroit on the 7th how began to withdraw his forces from the Canadian side on the 8th he ordered 600 men to make a second attempt to clear the southern road but on the 9th these men at McGuacka only 14 miles south of Detroit by a mixed force of British regulars, militia and Indians the superior numbers of the Americans enabled them to press the British back at first but on the 10th when the British showed a firm front in a new position the Americans retired discouraged next day how withdrew the last of his men from Canadian soil exactly one month after their first set foot upon it the following day was spent in consulting his staff and trying to reorganize his now unruly militia on the 13th he made his final effort to clear the one line left by sending out 400 picked men under his two best colonels MacArthur and Cass who were ordered to make an inland detour through the woods the same night Brock stepped ashore and