for service on the war vessels or on the privateers; and the regular naval officers had been trained in the Barbary wars. There was none of the spiritlessness, none of the dead-wood, in the navy that there was in the army.1

The federal treasury was empty, or would be by the end of the year, for the revenues were derived chiefly from duties on imports, and the non-intercourse act cut off this source of supply. The country had been "embargoed and non-intercoursed almost into a consumption," as John Randolph passionately declared. In the distressed state of commerce and industry, no new taxes were laid to take the place of the lost duties. With a probable revenue of less than ten million dollars, with which to meet expenses of thirty million dollars, with a credit so poor that loans fell at once below par, necessitating resort to treasury notes, with the Bank of the United States gone and the sympathies of the financial classes of New England and the Middle States hopelessly alienated, the United States faced a government with an income from taxation reaching seventy million dollars, and with the machinery for producing even greater revenue if the need were great enough. Congress seemed to have reached its limit of preparation for war against the armies and navies of Great Britain, the wealthiest power of Europe, when it authorized a loan of eleven million dol

1 Am. State Paps., Naval, I., 265; Roosevelt, Naval War, chap. ii.

lars and the issue of five million dollars of treasury notes.1

The chief advantage of America's eight millions of people against England's twenty millions, lay in geographical position. The great distance from England, over which she must transport, by the slow and uncertain means of sailing vessels, her men, arms, and supplies; and the vast extent of the interior of the United States, stretching back from the long coast-line running from the St. Croix to the St. Mary's, were prime factors in favor of the Americans. The attempts of England to penetrate into the great interior would be like the blows of a sledgehammer struck into a bin of wheat: a few kernels would be bruised or destroyed, but the iron would soon bury itself harmlessly just under the surface of the mass. Against the united strength of Great Britain, the United States could oppose no strong national spirit in 1812; there was little or no appreciation of the tendency to unity. For twentyfive years there had been unrelenting emphasis on differences of opinions and interests, commercial against planting classes; Virginia, the Carolinas, and Kentucky against New England. Threats of secession in and out of season were calmly received.

The leaders of the new Republicans made themselves believe that war against England would unite the whole nation against its foes, no matter what

1U. S. Statutes at Large, II., 694, 766; Dunbar (ed.), Laws, 62, 63.

might have been the partisan prejudices and factional differences before the declaration. In this judgment they were profoundly mistaken, betraying once more their inability to comprehend the strength of New York party feuds, or the unique New England combination of conscience, relentlessness, and thrift in business. Madison's plan of throwing “forward the flag of the country, sure that the people would press onward to defend it," was therefore destined to failure from the very start. The English premier, Lord Liverpool, showed real penetration into American conditions when he asserted in February, 1813, “that the war on the part of America had been a war of passion, of party spirit, and not a war of policy, of interest, or of necessity.'

1 Niles' Register, I., 252, quoting the Federal Republican; Adams, United States, VI., 210; Adams, Gallatin, 460, n.; Hansard, Parl. Debates, XXIV., 584.

HE war-makers of 1812 had no other purpose

THE

than to make an aggressive campaign from the start. The main reliance was to be upon the land forces, and consequently the only object of attack was Canada; hence it was along the long boundary-line stretching from Mackinac to Lake Champlain that the chief military operations took place, up to the summer of 1814. The conquest of Canada was one of the first and most important objects urged by men like Clay, to whom it had appeared for two years as the blow which England would feel almost as keenly as she had felt the loss of the thirteen colonies in the Revolutionary War. Either as a conquered province or as a hostage for securing from Britain the demands of the United States, it seemed supremely desirable. "The conquest of Canada is in your power," Clay announced to the House in February, 1810. "I trust I shall not be deemed presumptuous when I state that I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet. Is it nothing to the

British nation; is it nothing to the pride of her monarch, to have the last of the immense North American possessions held by him in the commencement of his reign wrested from his dominions? Is it nothing to us to extinguish the torch that lights up savage warfare?"1

In fact, so obtrusive was this aim that Randolph sarcastically declared: "Agrarian cupidity, not maritime right, urges the war. Ever since the report of the Committee on Foreign Relations came into the House, we have heard but one word,like the whippoorwill, but one eternal monotonous tone-Canada, Canada, Canada!" Even Jefferson, who ought to have known better, wrote to Duane in August, 1812: "The acquisition of Canada this year as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack on Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent." It may be recalled, however, that Jefferson was even less of an authority on military and naval matters than he was upon financial affairs. Very dearly were the Republicans to pay in terms of pain, loss, and pride for the jaunty way in which they attacked the British in Canada.2

Such a campaign was quite advisable and according to precedent. Successful attacks had been re

1 Annals of Cong., 11 Cong., 1 Sess., 580.

2 Ibid,. 12 Cong., 1 Sess., 533; Jefferson, Works (Federal ed.), XI., 265.

VOL. XIII.-8