Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812. Volume 1

Winchester had notified Harrison of his proposed action, but not in such time as to permit it to be countermanded. Receiving the news on the morning of January 19, Harrison at once recognized the hazardous nature of the step, and ordered forward troops from Upper and Lower Sandusky; proceeding himself to the latter place, and thence to the Rapids, which he reached early on the 20th, ahead of the re-enforcements. There was nothing to do but await developments until the men from Sandusky arrived. At noon of the 22d he received intelligence of the surrender, and saw that, through the imprudence of his subordinate, his project of crossing the ice to attack the enemy had been crushed by Procter, who had practically annihilated one of his principal divisions, beating it in detail.

The loss of so large a part of the force upon which he had counted, and the spread of sickness among the remainder, arrested Harrison's projects of offensive action. The Maumee even was abandoned for a few days, the army falling back to Portage River, toward the Sandusky. It soon, however, returned to the Rapids, and there Fort Meigs was built, which in the sequel proved sufficient to hold the position against Procter's attack. The army of the Northwest from that time remained purely on the defensive until the following September, when Perry's victory, assuring the control of the lake, enabled it to march secure of its communications.

Whatever chance of success may attend such a dash as that against Malden, planned by Harrison in December, or open to Hull in August, the undertaking is essentially outside the ordinary rules of warfare, and to be justified only by the special circumstances of the case, together with the possibility of securing the results obtained. Frenchtown, as a particular enterprise, illustrates in some measure the case of Malden. It was victoriously possessed, but under conditions which made its tenure more than doubtful, and the loss of the expeditionary corps more than probable. Furthermore, if held, it conferred no advantage. The position was less defensible than the Maumee, more exposed because nearer the enemy, more difficult to maintain because the communications were thirty miles longer, and, finally, it controlled nothing. The name of occupation, applied to it, was a mere misnomer, disguising a sham. Malden, on the contrary, if effectually held, would confer a great benefit; for in the hands of an enemy it menaced the communications of Detroit, and if coupled with command of the water, as was the case, it controlled them, as Hull found to his ruin. To gain it, therefore, justified a good deal of risk; yet if seized, unless control of the water were also soon established, it would, as compared with Detroit, entail upon the Americans the additional disadvantage that Frenchtown incurred over the Maumee,—an increase of exposure, because of longer and more exposed lines of communication. Though Malden was valuable to the British as a local base, with all the benefits of nearness, it was not the only one they possessed on the lakes. The loss of it, therefore, so long as they possessed decided superiority in armed shipping, though a great inconvenience, would not be a positive disability. With the small tonnage they had on the lake, however, it would have become extremely difficult, if not impossible, to transport and maintain a force sufficient seriously to interrupt the road from the Maumee, upon which Detroit depended.

In short, in all ordinary warfare, and in most that is extraordinary and seems outside the rules, one principle is sure to enforce itself with startling emphasis, if momentarily lost to sight or forgotten, and that is the need of secured communications. A military body, land or sea, may abandon its communications for a brief period, strictly limited, expecting soon to restore them at the same or some other point, just as a caravan can start across the desert with food and water which will last until another base is reached. There is no surrender of certainty in such a case; but a body of troops thrown into a position where it has no security of receiving supplies, incurs a risk that needs justification, and can receive it only from special circumstances. No position within striking distance of the lake shore was permanently secure unless supported by naval power; because all that is implied by the term "communications"—facility for transporting troops, supplies, and ammunition, rapidity of movement from point to point, central position and interior lines—all depended upon the control of the water, from Mackinac to the rapids of the St. Lawrence.

This truth, announced before the war by Hull and Armstrong, as well as by Harrison somewhat later, and sufficiently obvious to any thoughtful man, was recognized in act by Harrison and the Government after the Frenchtown disaster. The general was not responsible for the blunder of his subordinate, nor am I able to see that his general plans for a land campaign, considered independent of the water, lacked either insight, judgment, or energy. He unquestionably made very rash calculations, and indulged in wildly sanguine assurances of success; but this was probably inevitable in the atmosphere in which he had to work. The obstacles to be overcome were so enormous, the people and the Government, militarily, so ignorant and incapable, that it was scarcely possible to move efficiently without adopting, or seeming to adopt, the popular spirit and conviction. Facts had now asserted themselves through the unpleasant medium of experience, and henceforth it was tacitly accepted that nothing could be done except to stand on the defensive, until the navy of Lake Erie, as yet unbuilt, could exert its power. Until that day came, even the defensive positions taken were rudely shaken by Procter, a far from efficient officer, but possessed still of the power of the lakes, and following, though over-feebly, the spirit of Brock's instructions, to attack the enemy's posts and keep things in a ferment.

With the Frenchtown affair hostilities on the Canada frontier ceased until the following April; but the winter months were not therefore passed in inactivity. Chauncey, after laying up his ships at Sackett's Harbor, and representing to the Government the danger to them and to the navy yard, now that frost had extended over the waters the solidity of the ground, enabling the enemy to cross at will, departed to visit his hitherto neglected command on Lake Erie. He had already seen cause to be dissatisfied with Elliott's choice of a navy yard, known usually by the name Black Rock, a quarter of a mile above Squaw Island. The hostile shores were here so close together that even musketry could be exchanged; and Elliott, when reporting his decision, said "the river is so narrow that the soldiers are shooting at each other across." There was the further difficulty that, to reach the open lake, the vessels would have to go three miles against a current that ran four knots an hour, and much of the way within point-blank range of the enemy. Nevertheless, after examining all situations on Lake Erie, Elliott had reported that none other would answer the purpose; "those that have shelters have not sufficient water, and those with water cannot be defended from the enemy and the violence of the weather."[475] Here he had collected materials and gathered six tiny vessels; the largest a brig of ninety tons, the others schooners of from forty to eighty. These he began to equip and alter about the middle of October, upon the arrival of the carpenters sent by Chauncey; but the British kept up such a fire of shot and shell that the carpenters quitted their work and returned to New York, leaving the vessels with their decks and sides torn up.[476]

They were still in this condition when Chauncey came, toward the end of December; and although then hauled into a creek behind Squaw Island, out of range, there were no workmen to complete them. He passed on to Presqu'Isle, now Erie, on the Pennsylvania shore, and found it in every way eligible as a port, except that there were but four or five feet of water on the bar. Vessels of war within could reach the lake only by being lightened of their guns and stores, a condition impracticable in the presence of a hostile squadron; but the local advantages were much superior to those at Black Rock, and while it could be hoped that a lucky opportunity might insure the absence of the enemy's vessels, the enemy's guns on the Niagara shore were fixtures, unless the American army took possession of them. Between these various considerations Chauncey decided to shift the naval base from Black Rock to Erie; and he there assembled the materials for the two brigs, of three hundred tons each, which formed the backbone of Perry's squadron nine months later.[477] For supplies Erie depended upon Philadelphia and Pittsburg, there being from the latter place water communication by the Alleghany River, and its tributary the French River, to within fifteen miles, whence the transportation was by good road. Except timber, which grew upon the spot, the materials—iron, cordage, provisions, and guns—came mainly by this route from Pennsylvania; a number of guns, however, being sent from Washington. By these arrangements the resources of New York, relieved of Lake Erie, were concentrated upon Lakes Ontario and Champlain.

Chauncey further provided for the defence of Black Rock by its own resources against sudden attack; the army, except a local force of three hundred men, having gone into winter quarters ten miles back from the Niagara. He then returned to Sackett's Harbor January 19, where he found preparations for protection even less satisfactory than upon Lake Erie,[478] although the stake was far greater; for it may safely be said that the fall of either Kingston or Sackett's would have decided the fate of Lake Ontario and of Upper Canada, at once and definitively. It had now become evident that, in order to decide superiority on the water, there was to be between these neighboring and hostile stations the race of ship-building, which became and continued the most marked feature of the war on this lake. Chauncey felt the increasing necessity thus entailed for his presence on the scene. He was proportionately relieved by receiving at this time an application from Commander Oliver H. Perry to serve under him on the lakes, and immediately, on January 21, applied for his orders, stating that he could "be employed to great advantage, particularly on Lake Erie, where I shall not be able to go so early as I expected, owing to the increasing force of the enemy on this lake." This marks the official beginning of Perry's entrance upon the duty in which he won a distinction that his less fortunate superior failed to achieve. At this time, however, Chauncey hoped to attain such superiority by the opening of spring, and to receive such support from the army, as to capture Kingston by a joint operation, the plan for which he submitted to the Department. That accomplished, he would be able to transfer to Lake Erie the force of men needed to destroy the enemy's fleet there.[479] This expectation was not fulfilled, and Perry remained in practically independent command upon the upper lakes.

The season of 1812 may be said, therefore, to have closed with the American squadron upon Lake Ontario concentrated in Sackett's Harbor, where also two new and relatively powerful ships were building. Upon Lake Erie the force was divided between Black Rock, where Elliott's flotilla lay, and Erie, where the two brigs were laid down, and four other gunboats building. The concentration of these two bodies could be effected only by first taking possession of the British side of the Niagara River. This done, and the Black Rock vessels thus released, there still remained the bar at Erie to pass. The British force on Ontario was likewise divided, between Toronto and Kingston, the vessels afloat being at the latter. Neither place, however, was under such fetters as Black Rock, and the two divisions might very possibly be assembled despite the hostile fleet. On the upper lake their navy was at Amherstburg, where also was building a ship, inferior in force, despite her rig, to either of the brigs ordered by Chauncey at Erie. The difficulties of obtaining supplies, mechanics, and seamen, in that then remote region, imposed great hindrances upon the general British preparations. There nevertheless remained in their hands, at the opening of the campaign, the great advantages over the Americans—first, of the separation of the latter's divisions, enforced by the British holding the bank of the Niagara; and secondly, of the almost insuperable difficulty of crossing the Erie bar unarmed, if the enemy's fleet kept in position near it. That the British failed to sustain these original advantages condemns their management, and is far more a matter of military criticism than the relative power of the two squadrons in the battle of September 10. The principal business of each commander was to be stronger than the enemy when they met. That the American accomplished this, despite serious obstacles, first by concentrating his force, and second by crossing the bar unimpeded, so that when he encountered his opponent he was in decisively superior force, is as distinctly to his credit as it would have been distinctly to his discredit had the odds been reversed by any fault of his. Perry by diligent efficiency overcame his difficulties, combined his divisions, gained the lake, and, by commanding it, so cut off his enemy's supplies that he compelled him to come out, and fight, and be destroyed. To compare the force of the two may be a matter of curious interest; but for the purpose of making comparisons of desert between them it is a mere waste of ink, important only to those who conceive the chief end of war to be fighting, and not victory.

The disaster at Frenchtown, with the consequent abandonment of all project of forward movement by the Army of the Northwest, may be regarded as the definite termination of the land campaign of 1812. Before resuming the account of the ocean operations of the same period, it is expedient here to give a summary of European conditions at the same time, for these markedly affected the policy of the British Government towards the United States, even after war had been formally declared.

The British Orders in Council of 1807, modified in 1809 in scope, though not in principle, had been for a long while the grievance chiefly insisted upon by the United States. Against them mainly was directed, by Jefferson and Madison, the system of commercial restrictions which it was believed would compel their repeal. Consequently, when the British Government had abolished the obnoxious Orders, on June 23, 1812, with reservations probably admissible by the United States, it was unwilling to believe that war could still not be avoided; nor that, even if begun in ignorance of the repeal, it could not be stopped without further concession. Till near the end of the year 1812 its measures were governed by this expectation, powerfully re-enforced by momentous considerations of European events, the effect of which upon the United States requires that they be stated.

In June, 1812, European politics were reaching a crisis, the issue of which could not then be forecast. War had begun between Napoleon and Russia; and on June 24 the Emperor, crossing the Niemen, invaded the dominion of the Czar. Great Britain, already nine years at war with France, had just succeeded in detaching Russia from her enemy, and ranging her on her own side. The accession of Sweden to this alliance conferred complete control of the Baltic, thus releasing a huge British fleet hitherto maintained there, and opening an important trade, debarred to Great Britain in great measure for four years past. But on the other hand, Napoleon still, as during all this recent period, controlled the Continent from the Pyrenees to the Vistula, carrying its hosts forward against Russia, and closing its ports to British commerce to the depressing injury of British finance. A young Canadian, then in England, in close contact with London business life, wrote to his home at this period: "There is a general stagnation of commerce, all entrance to Europe being completely shut up. There was never a time known to compare with the present, nearly all foreign traders becoming bankrupt, or reduced to one tenth of their former trade. Merchants, who once kept ten or fifteen clerks, have now but two or three; thousands of half-starved discharged clerks are skulking about the streets. Customhouse duties are reduced upwards of one half. Of such dread power are Bonaparte's decrees, which have of late been enforced in the strictest manner all over the Continent, that it has almost ruined the commerce of England."[480]

A month before the United States declared war the perplexities of the British Government were depicted by the same writer, in terms which palpably and graphically reflect the contemporary talk of the counting-house and the dinner-table: "If the Orders in Council are repealed, the trade of the United States will flourish beyond all former periods. They will then have the whole commerce of the Continent in their hands, and the British, though blockading with powerful armaments the hostile ports of Europe, will behold fleets of American merchantmen enter in safety the harbors of the enemy, and carry on a brisk and lucrative trade, whilst Englishmen, who command the ocean and are sole masters of the deep, must quietly suffer two thirds of their shipping to be dismantled and lie useless in little rivers or before empty warehouses. Their seamen, to earn a little salt junk and flinty biscuits, must spread themselves like vagabonds over the face of the earth, and enter the service of any nation. If, on the contrary, the Government continue to enforce the Orders, trade will still remain in its present deplorable state; an American war will follow, and poor Canada will bear the brunt." Cannot one see the fine old fellows of the period shaking their heads over their wine, and hear the words which the lively young provincial takes down almost from their lips? They portray truly, however, the anxious dilemma in which the Government was living, and explain concisely the conflicting considerations which brought on the war with the United States. From this embarrassing situation the current year brought a double relief. The chance of American competition was removed by the declaration of war, and exclusion from the Continent by Napoleon's reverses.

While matters were thus in northern and central Europe, in the far southwest the Spanish peninsula had for the same four dreary years been the scene of desolating strife, in which from the beginning Great Britain had taken a most active part, supporting the insurgent people with armies and money against the French legions. The weakening effect of this conflict upon the Emperor, and the tremendous additional strain upon his resources now occasioned by the break with Russia, were well understood, and hopes rose high; but heavy in the other scale were his unbroken record of success, and the fact that the War in the Peninsula, the sustenance of which was now doubly imperative in order to maintain the fatal dissemination of his forces between the two extremities of Europe, depended upon intercourse with the United States. The corn of America fed the British and their allies in the Peninsula, and so abundantly, that flour was cheaper in Lisbon than in Liverpool. In 1811, 802 American vessels entered the Tagus to 860 British; and from all the rest of the outside world there came only 75. The Peninsula itself, Spain and Portugal together, sent but 452.[481] The merchants of Baltimore, petitioning against the Non-Intercourse Act, said that $100,000,000 were owing by British merchants to Americans, which could only be repaid by importations from England; and that this debt was chiefly for shipments to Spain and Portugal.[482] The yearly export thither, mainly for the armies, was 700,000 barrels of flour, besides grain in other forms.[483] The maintenance of this supply would be endangered by war.

Upon the continuance of peace depended also the enjoyment of the relatively tranquil conditions which Great Britain, after years of vexation, had succeeded at last in establishing in the western basin of the Atlantic, and especially in the Caribbean Sea. In 1808 the revolt of the Spanish people turned the Spanish West Indies once more to her side; and in 1809 and 1810 the conquest of the last of the French islands gave her control of the whole region, depriving French privateers of every base for local operations against British commerce. In 1812, by returns to September 1, the Royal Navy had at sea one hundred and twenty ships of the line and one hundred and forty-five frigates, besides four hundred and twenty-one other cruisers, sixteen of which were larger and the rest smaller than the frigate class—a total of six hundred and eighty-six.[484] Of these there were on the North American and West India stations only three of the line, fifteen frigates, and sixty-one smaller—a total of seventy-nine.[485] The huge remainder of over six hundred ships of war were detained elsewhere by the exigencies of the contest, the naval range of which stretched from the Levant to the shores of Denmark and Norway, then one kingdom under Napoleon's control; and in the far Eastern seas extended to the Straits of Sunda, and beyond. From Antwerp to Venice, in various ports, when the Empire fell, Napoleon had over a hundred ships of the line and half a hundred frigates. To hold these in check was in itself a heavy task for the British sea power, even though most of the colonial ports which might serve as bases for their external action had been wrested from France. A hostile America would open to the French navy a number of harbors which it now needed; and at the will of the Emperor the United States might receive a division of ships of a class she lacked entirely, but could both officer and man. One of Napoleon's great wants was seamen, and it was perfectly understood by intelligent naval officers, and by appreciative statesmen like John Adams and Gouverneur Morris, that a fleet of ships of the line, based upon American resources, would constitute for Great Britain a more difficult problem than a vastly larger number in Europe. The probability was contemplated by both the British Commander-in-Chief and the Admiralty, and was doubtless a chief reason for the comparatively large number of ships of the line—eleven—assigned on the outbreak of hostilities to a station where otherwise there was no similar force to encounter.[486] To bring the French ships and this coast-line together was a combination correct in conception, and not impracticable. It was spoken of at the time—rumored as a design; and had not the attention and the means of the Emperor been otherwise preoccupied, probably would have been attempted, and not impossibly effected.

To avert such a conjuncture by the restoration of peace was necessarily an object of British policy. More than that, however, was at stake. The Orders in Council had served their turn. In conjunction with Napoleon's Continental System, by the misery inflicted upon all the countries under his control, they had brought about the desperation of Russia and the resistance of the Czar, who at first had engaged in the Emperor's policy. Russia and France were at war, and it was imperative at once to redouble the pressure in the Peninsula, and to recuperate the financial strength of Great Britain, by opening every possible avenue of supply and of market to British trade, in order to bring the whole national power, economical and military, to bear effectively upon what promised to be a death struggle. The repeal of the Orders, with the consequent admission of American merchant ships to every hostile port, except such, few as might be effectively blockaded in accordance with the accepted principles of International Law, was the price offered for the preservation of peace, and for readmission to the American market, closed to British manufacturers and merchants by the Non-Importation Acts. This extension of British commerce, now loudly demanded by the British people, was an object to be accomplished by the same means that should prevent the American people from constituting themselves virtually the allies of Napoleon by going to war. Should this dreaded alternative, however, come to pass, not only would British trade again miss the market, the loss of which had already caused widespread suffering, but, in common with it, British navigation, British shipping, the chief handmaid of commerce, would be exposed in a remote quarter, most difficult to guard, to the privateering activity of a people whose aptitude for such occupation had been demonstrated in the fight for independence and the old French wars. Half a century before, in the years 1756-58, there had been fitted out in the single port of New York, for war against the French, forty-eight privateers, carrying six hundred and ninety-five guns and manned by over five thousand men.[487]

The conditions enumerated constituted the principal important military possibilities of the sea frontier of the United States, regarded as an element in the general international situation when the year 1812 opened. Its importance to France was simply that of an additional weight thrown into the scale against Great Britain. France, being excluded from the sea, could not be aided or injured by the United States directly, but only indirectly, through their common enemy; and the same was substantially true of the Continent at large. But to Great Britain a hostile seaboard in America meant the possibility of all that has been stated; and therefore, slowly and unwillingly, but surely, the apprehension of war with its added burden forced the Government to a concession which years of intermittent commercial restrictions by the United States, and of Opposition denunciation at home, had not been able to extort. The sudden death of Spencer Perceval, the prime minister identified with the Orders in Council, possibly facilitated the issue, but it had become inevitable by sheer pressure of circumstances as they developed. It came to pass, by a conjuncture most fortunate for Great Britain, and most unfavorable to the United States, that the moment of war, vainly sought to be avoided by both parties, coincided with the first rude jar to Napoleon's empire and its speedy final collapse; leaving the Union, weakened by internal dissension, exposed single-handed to the full force of the British power. At the beginning, however, and till toward the end of 1812, it seemed possible that for an indefinite period the efforts of the Americans would receive the support derived from the inevitable preoccupation of their enemy with European affairs; nor did many doubt Napoleon's success against Russia, or that it would be followed by Great Britain's abandoning the European struggle as hopeless.

For such maritime and political contingencies the British Admiralty had to prepare, when the near prospect of war with America threatened to add to the extensive responsibilities entailed by the long strife with Napoleon. Its measures reflected the double purpose of the Government: to secure peace, if possible, yet not to surrender policies considered imperative. On May 9, 1812, identical instructions were issued to each of the admirals commanding the four transatlantic stations,—Newfoundland, Halifax, Jamaica, and Barbados,—warning them of the imminent probability of hostilities, in the event of which, by aggressive action or formal declaration on the part of the United States, they were authorized to resort at once to all customary procedures of war; "to attack, take or sink, burn or destroy, all ships or vessels belonging to the United States or to the citizens thereof." At the same time, however, special stress was laid upon the urgent wish of the Government to avoid occasions which might induce a collision. "You are to direct the commanders of his Majesty's ships to exercise, except in the events hereinbefore specified, all possible forbearance toward the United States, and to contribute, as far as may depend upon them, to that good understanding which it is his Royal Highness's[488] most earnest wish to maintain."[489] The spirit of these orders, together with caution not to be attacked unawares, accounts for the absence of British ships of war from the neighborhood of the American coast noted by Rodgers' cruising squadron in the spring of 1812. Decatur, indeed, was informed by a British naval agent that the admiral at Bermuda did not permit more than two vessels to cruise at a time, and these were instructed not to approach the American coast.[490] The temper of the controlling element in the Administration, and the disposition of American naval officers since the "Chesapeake" affair, were but too likely to afford causes of misunderstanding in case of a meeting.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VIIIToC

OCEAN WARFARE AGAINST COMMERCE—PRIVATEERING—BRITISH LICENSES—NAVAL ACTIONS: "WASP" AND "FROLIC"; "UNITED STATES" AND "MACEDONIAN"

In anticipation of war the British Admiralty took the military measure of consolidating their transatlantic stations, with the exception of Newfoundland. The Jamaica, Leeward Islands, and Halifax squadrons, while retaining their present local organizations, were subordinated to a single chief; for which position was designated Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, an officer of good fighting record, but from his previous career esteemed less a seaman than a gallant man. This was apparently his first extensive command, although he was now approaching sixty; but it was foreseen that the British minister might have left Washington in consequence of a rupture of relations, and that there might thus devolve upon the naval commander-in-chief certain diplomatic overtures, which the Government had determined to make before definitely accepting war as an irreversible issue. Warren, a man of courtly manners, had some slight diplomatic antecedents, having represented Great Britain at St. Petersburg on one occasion. There were also other negotiations anticipated, dependent upon political conditions within the Union; where bitter oppositions of opinion, sectional in character, were known to exist concerning the course of the Administration in resorting to hostilities. Warren was instructed on these several points.

It was not until July 25, 1812, that a despatch vessel from Halifax brought word to England of the attack upon the "Belvidera" by Rodgers' squadron on June 24. By the same mail Admiral Sawyer wrote that he had sent a flag of truce to New York to ask an explanation, and besides had directed all his cruisers to assemble at Halifax.[491] The Government recognized the gravity of the news, but expressed the opinion that there was no evidence that war had been decided upon, and that the action of the American commodore had been in conformity with previous orders not to permit foreign cruisers within the waters of the United States. Some color was lent to this view by the circumstance that the "Belvidera" was reported to have been off Sandy Hook, though not in sight of land.[492] In short, the British Cabinet officially assumed that facts were as they wished them to continue; the course best adapted to insure the maintenance of peace, if perchance not yet broken.

On July 29, however, definite information was received that the United States Government had declared that war existed between the two countries. On the 31st the Cabinet took its first measures in consequence.[493] One order was issued forbidding British merchant vessels to sail without convoy for any part of North America or the West Indies; while another laid an embargo on all American merchant ships in British ports, and directed the capture of any met at sea, unless sailing under British licenses, as many then did to Continental ports. No other hostile steps, such as general reprisals or commercial blockade, were at this time authorized; it was decided to await the effect in the United States of the repeal of the obnoxious Orders in Council. This having taken place only on June 23, intelligence of its reception and results could not well reach England before the middle of September. When Parliament was prorogued on July 30, the speech from the throne expressed a willingness still "to hope that the accustomed relations of peace and amity between the two countries may yet be restored."

It is a coincidence, accidental, yet noteworthy for its significance, that the date of the first hostile action against the United States, July 31, was also that of the official promulgation of treaties of peace between Great Britain, Russia, and Sweden.[494] Accompanied as these were with clauses embodying what was virtually a defensive alliance of the three Powers against Napoleon, they marked that turn of the tide in European affairs which overthrew one of the most important factors in the political and military anticipations of the United States Administration. "Can it be doubted," wrote Madison on September 6, "that if, under the pressure added by our war to that previously felt by Great Britain, her Government declines an accommodation, it will be owing to calculations drawn from our internal divisions?"[495] Of the approaching change, however, no sign yet appeared. The reverses of the French were still in the far future. Not until September 14 did they enter Moscow, and news of this event was received in the United States only at the end of November. A contemporary weekly, under date of December 5, remarked: "Peace before this time has been dictated by Bonaparte, as ought to have been calculated upon by the dealers (sic) at St. Petersburg, before they, influenced by the British, prevailed upon Alexander to embark in the War.... All Europe, the British Islands excepted, will soon be at the feet of Bonaparte."[496] This expectation, generally shared during the summer of 1812, is an element in the American situation not to be overlooked. As late as December 4, Henry Clay, addressing the House of Representatives, of which he then was Speaker, said: "The British trade shut out from the Baltic—excluded from the Continent of Europe—possibly expelled the Black Sea—perishing in South America; its illicit avenue to the United States, through Canada, closed—was this the period for throwing open our own market by abandoning our restrictive system? Perhaps at this moment the fate of the north of Europe is decided, and the French Emperor may be dictating the law from Moscow."[497] The following night Napoleon finally abandoned his routed army and started on his return to Paris.

War having been foreseen, the British Government took its first step without hesitation. On August 6 the Foreign Office issued Warren's secret instructions, which were substantially the repetition of those already addressed on July 8 to its representative in Washington. It being probable that before they could be received he would have departed in consequence of the rupture, Warren was to submit the proposition contained in them, that the United States Government, in view of the revocation of the Orders in Council, so long demanded by it, should recall the hostile measures taken. In case of acceptance, he was authorized to stop at once all hostilities within his command, and to give assurance of similar action by his Government in every part of the world. If this advance proved fruitless, as it did, no orders instituting a state of war were needed, for it already existed; but for that contingency Warren received further instructions as to the course he was to pursue, in case "a desire should manifest itself in any considerable portion of the American Union, more especially in those States bordering upon his Majesty's North American dominions, to return to their relations of peace and amity with this country." The admiral was to encourage such dispositions, and should they take shape in formal act, making overtures to him for a cessation of hostilities for that part of the country, he was directed to grant it, and to enter into negotiations for commercial intercourse between the section thus acting and the British dominions. In short, if the General Government proved irreconcilable, Great Britain was to profit by any sentiment of disunion found to exist.[498]

Warren sailed from Portsmouth August 14, arriving in Halifax September 26. On the 30th, he despatched to the United States Government the proposal for the cessation of hostilities. Monroe, the Secretary of State, replied on October 27. The President, he said, was at all times anxious to restore peace, and at the very moment of declaring war had instructed the chargé in London to make propositions to that effect to the British Ministry. An indispensable condition, however, was the abandonment of the practice of impressment from American vessels. The President recognized the embarrassment under which Great Britain lay, because of her felt necessity to control the services of her native seamen, and was willing to undertake that hereafter they should be wholly excluded from the naval and merchant ships of the United States. This should be done under regulations to be negotiated between the two countries, in order to obviate the injury alleged by Great Britain; but, meanwhile, impressing from under the American flag must be discontinued during any armistice arranged. "It cannot be presumed, while the parties are engaged in a negotiation to adjust amicably this important difference, that the United States would admit the right, or acquiesce in the practice of the opposite party, or that Great Britain would be unwilling to restrain her cruisers from a practice which would have the strongest tendency to defeat the negotiation." The Orders in Council having been revoked, impressment remained the only outstanding question upon which the United States was absolute in its demand. That conceded, upon the terms indicated, all other differences might be referred to negotiation. Upon this point Warren had no powers, for his Government was determined not to yield. The maritime war therefore went on unabated; but it may be mentioned here that the President's undertaking to exclude British-born seamen from American ships took effect in an Act of Congress, approved by him March 3, 1813. He had thenceforth in hand a pledge which he considered a full guarantee against whatever Great Britain feared to lose by ceasing to take seamen from under the American flag. It was not so regarded in England, and no formal agreement on this interesting subject was ever reached.

The conditions existing upon his arrival, and the occurrences of the past three months, as then first fully known to Warren, deeply impressed him with the largeness of his task in protecting the commerce of Great Britain. He found himself at once in the midst of its most evident perils, which in the beginning were concentrated about Halifax, owing to special circumstances. Although long seemingly imminent, hostilities when they actually came had found the mercantile community of the United States, for the most part, unbelieving and unprepared. The cry of "Wolf!" had been raised so often that they did not credit its coming, even when at the doors. This was especially the case in New England, where the popular feeling against war increased the indisposition to think it near. On May 14, Captain Bainbridge, commanding the Boston navy yard, wrote: "I am sorry to say that the people here do not believe we are going to war, and are too much disposed to treat our national councils with contempt, and to consider their preparations as electioneering."[499] The presidential election was due in the following November. A Baltimore newspaper of the day, criticising the universal rush to evade the embargo of April 4, instituted in order to keep both seamen and property at home in avoidance of capture, added that in justice it must be said that most people believed that the embargo, as on former occasions, did not mean war.[500]

Under the general sense of unpreparedness, it seemed to many inconceivable that the Administration would venture to expose the coasts to British reprisals. John Randolph, repeating in the House of Representatives in secret session a conversation between the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Secretary of State, said: "He was asked whether any essential changes would be made in the sixty days (of the proposed embargo) in the defence of our maritime frontier and seaports. He replied, pretty considerable preparations would be made. He said New York was in a pretty respectable state, but not such as to resist a formidable fleet; but that it was not to be expected that that kind of war would be carried on." The obvious reply was, "We must expect what commonly happens in wars." "As to the prepared state of the country, the President, in case of a declaration, would not feel bound to take more than his share of the responsibility. The unprepared state of the country was the only reason why ulterior measures should be deferred."[501] Randolph's recollections of this interview were challenged by members of the Committee in other points, but not in these. The Administration had then been in office three years, and the causes of war had been accumulating for at least seven; but so notorious was the unreadiness that a great part of the community even now saw only bluster.

For these reasons the first rush to privateering, although feverishly energetic, was of a somewhat extemporized character. In consequence of the attempt to elude the embargo, by a precipitate and extensive export movement, a very large part of the merchant ships and seamen were now abroad. Hence, in the haste to seize upon enemy's shipping, anything that could be sent to sea at quick notice was utilized. Vessels thus equipped were rarely best fitted for a distant voyage, in which dependence must rest upon their own resources, and upon crews both numerous and capable. They were therefore necessarily directed upon commercial highways near at hand, which, though not intrinsically richest, nor followed by the cargoes that would pay best in the United States, could nevertheless adequately reward enterprise. In the near vicinity of Halifax the routes from the British West Indies to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the St. Lawrence, met and crossed the equally important lines of travel from the British Islands to the same points. This circumstance contributed to the importance of that place as a naval and commercial centre, and also focussed about it by far the larger part of the effort and excitement of the first privateering outburst from the United States. As Rodgers' bold sortie, and disappearance into the unknown with a strong squadron had forced concentration upon the principal British vessels, the cruisers remaining for dispersion in search of privateers were numerically inadequate to suppress the many and scattered Americans. Before Warren's arrival the prizes reported in the United States were one hundred and ninety, and they probably exceeded two hundred. An analysis of the somewhat imperfect data which accompany these returns indicates that about three fourths were seized in the Bay of Fundy and in the off-lying waters from thence round to Newfoundland. Of the remainder, half, probably, were taken in the West Indies; and the rest out in the deep sea, beyond the Gulf Stream, upon the first part of the track followed by the sugar and coffee traders from the West Indies to England.[502] There had not yet been time to hear of prizes taken in Europe, to which comparatively few privateers as yet went.

One of the most intelligent and enterprising of the early privateers was Commodore Joshua Barney, a veteran of the American Navy of the Revolution. He commissioned a Baltimore schooner, the "Rossie," at the outbreak of the war; partly, apparently, in order to show a good example of patriotic energy, but doubtless also through the promptings of a love of adventure, not extinguished by advancing years. The double motive kept him an active, useful, and distinguished public servant throughout the war. His cruise on this occasion, as far as can be gathered from the reports,[503] conformed in direction to the quarters in which the enemy's merchant ships might most surely be expected. Sailing from the Chesapeake July 15, he seems to have stood at once outside the Gulf Stream for the eastern edge of the Banks of Newfoundland. In the ensuing two weeks he was twice chased by an enemy's frigate, and not till July 31 did he take his first prize. From that day, to and including August 9, he captured ten other vessels—eleven in all. Unfortunately, the precise locality of each seizure is not given, but it is inferable from the general tenor of the accounts that they were made between the eastern edge of the Great Banks and the immediate neighborhood of Halifax; in the locality, in fact, to which Hull during those same ten days was directing the "Constitution," partly in pursuit of prizes, equally in search of the enemy's ships of war, which were naturally to be sought at those centres of movement where their national traders accumulated.

On August 30 the "Rossie," having run down the Nova Scotia coast and passed by George's Bank and Nantucket, went into Newport, Rhode Island. It is noticeable that before and after those ten days of success, although she saw no English vessels, except ships of war cruising on the outer approaches of their commerce, she was continually meeting and speaking American vessels returning home. These facts illustrate the considerations governing privateering, and refute the plausible opinion often advanced, that it was a mere matter of gambling adventure. Thus Mr. Gallatin, the Secretary of the Treasury, in a communication to Congress, said: "The occupation of privateers is precisely of the same species as the lottery, with respect to hazard and to the chance of rich prizes."[504] Gallatin approached the subject from the standpoint of the financier and with the abstract ideas of the political economist. His temporary successor, the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Jones, had been a merchant in active business life, and he viewed privateering as a practical business undertaking. "The analogy between privateering and lotteries does not appear to me to be so strict as the Secretary seems to consider it. The adventure of a privateer is of the nature of a commercial project or speculation, conducted by commercial men upon principles of mercantile calculation and profit. The vessel and her equipment is a matter of great expense, which is expected to be remunerated by the probable chances of profit, after calculating the outfit, insurance, etc., as in a regular mercantile voyage."[505] Mr. Jones would doubtless have admitted what Gallatin alleged, that the business was liable to be overdone, as is the case with all promising occupations; and that many would engage in it without adequate understanding or forethought.

The elements of risk which enter into privateering are doubtless very great, and to some extent baffle calculation. In this it only shares the lot common to all warlike enterprise, in which, as the ablest masters of the art repeatedly affirm, something must be allowed for chance. But it does not follow that a reasonable measure of success may not fairly be expected, where sagacious appreciation of well-known facts controls the direction of effort, and preparation is proportioned to the difficulties to be encountered. Heedlessness of conditions, or recklessness of dangers, defeat effort everywhere, as well as in privateering; nor is even the chapter of unforeseen accident confined to military affairs. In 1812 the courses followed by the enemy's trade were well understood, as were also the characteristics of their ships of war, in sailing, distribution, and management.[506] Regard being had to these conditions, the pecuniary venture, which privateering essentially is, was sure of fair returns—barring accidents—if the vessels were thoroughly well found, with superior speed and nautical qualities, and if directed upon the centres of ocean travel, such as the approaches to the English Channel, or, as before noted, to where great highways cross, inducing an accumulation of vessels from several quarters. So pursued, privateering can be made pecuniarily successful, as was shown by the increasing number and value of prizes as the war went on. It has also a distinct effect as a minor offensive operation, harassing and weakening the enemy; but its merits are more contestable when regarded as by itself alone decisive of great issues. Despite the efficiency and numbers of American privateers, it was not British commerce, but American, that was destroyed by the war.

From Newport the "Rossie" took a turn through another lucrative field of privateering enterprise, the Caribbean Sea. Passing by Bermuda, which brought her in the track of vessels from the West Indies to Halifax, she entered the Caribbean at its northeastern corner, by the Anegada Passage, near St. Thomas, thence ran along the south shore of Porto Rico, coming out by the Mona Passage, between Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, and so home by the Gulf Stream. In this second voyage she made but two prizes; and it is noted in her log book that she here met the privateer schooner "Rapid" from Charleston, fifty-two days out, without taking anything. The cause of these small results does not certainly appear; but it may be presumed that with the height of the hurricane season at hand, most of the West India traders had already sailed for Europe. Despite all drawbacks, when the "Rossie" returned to Baltimore toward the end of October, she had captured or destroyed property roughly reckoned at a million and a half, which is probably an exaggerated estimate. Two hundred and seventeen prisoners had been taken.

While the "Rossie" was on her way to the West Indies, there sailed from Salem a large privateer called the "America," the equipment and operations of which illustrated precisely the business conception which attached to these enterprises in the minds of competent business men. This ship-rigged vessel of four hundred and seventy-three tons, built of course for a merchantman, was about eight years old when the war broke out, and had just returned from a voyage. Seeing that ordinary commerce was likely to be a very precarious undertaking, her owners spent the months of July and August in preparing her deliberately for her new occupation. Her upper deck was removed, and sides filled in solid. She was given larger yards and loftier spars than before; the greatly increased number of men carried by a privateer, for fighting and for manning prizes, enabling canvas to be handled with greater rapidity and certainty. She received a battery of very respectable force for those days, so that she could repel the smaller classes of ships of war, which formed a large proportion of the enemy's cruisers. Thus fitted to fight or run, and having very superior speed, she was often chased, but never caught. During the two and a half years of war she made four cruises of four months each; taking in all forty-one prizes, twenty-seven of which reached port and realized $1,100,000, after deducting expenses and government charges. As half of this went to the ship's company, the owners netted $550,000 for sixteen months' active use of the ship. Her invariable cruising ground was from the English Channel south, to the latitude of the Canary Islands.[507]

The United States having declared war, the Americans enjoyed the advantage of the first blow at the enemy's trade. The reduced numbers of vessels on the British transatlantic stations, and the perplexity induced by Rodgers' movement, combined to restrict the injury to American shipping. A number of prizes were made, doubtless; but as nearly as can be ascertained not over seventy American merchant ships were taken in the first three months of the war. Of these, thirty-eight are reported as brought under the jurisdiction of the Vice-Admiralty Court at Halifax, and twenty-four as captured on the Jamaica station. News of the war not being received by the British squadrons in Europe until early in August, only one capture there appears before October 1, except from the Mediterranean. There Captain Usher on September 6 wrote from Gibraltar that all the Americans on their way down the Sea—that is, out of the Straits—had been taken.[508] In like manner, though with somewhat better fortune, thirty or forty American ships from the Baltic were driven to take refuge in the neutral Swedish port of Gottenburg, and remained war-bound.[509] That the British cruisers were not inactive in protecting the threatened shores and waters of Nova Scotia and the St. Lawrence is proved by the seizure of twenty-four American privateers, between July 1 and August 25;[510] a result to which the inadequate equipment of these vessels probably contributed. But American shipping, upon the whole, at first escaped pretty well in the matter of actual capture.

It was not in this way, but by the almost total suppression of commerce, both coasting and foreign, both neutral and American, that the maritime pressure of war was brought home to the United States. This also did not happen until a comparatively late period. No commercial blockade was instituted by the enemy before February, 1813. Up to that time neutrals, not carrying contraband, had free admission to all American ports; and the British for their own purposes encouraged a licensed trade, wholly illegitimate as far as United States ships were concerned, but in which American citizens and American vessels were largely engaged, though frequently under flags of other nations. A significant indication of the nature of this traffic is found in the export returns of the year ending September 30, 1813. The total value of home produce exported was $25,008,152, chiefly flour, grain, and other provisions. Of this, $20,536,328 went to Spain and Portugal with their colonies; $15,500,000 to the Peninsula itself.[511] It was not till October, 1813, when the British armies entered France, that this demand fell. At the same time Halifax and Canada were being supplied with flour from New England; and the common saying that the British forces in Canada could not keep the field but for supplies sent from the United States was strictly true, and has been attested by British commissaries. An American in Halifax in November, 1812, wrote home that within a fortnight twenty thousand barrels of flour had arrived in vessels under Spanish and Swedish flags, chiefly from Boston. This sort of unfaithfulness to a national cause is incidental to most wars, but rarely amounts to as grievous a military evil as in 1812 and 1813, when both the Peninsula and Canada were substantially at our mercy in this respect. With the fall of Napoleon, and the opening of Continental resources, such control departed from American hands. In the succeeding twelvemonth there was sent to the Peninsula less than $5,000,000 worth.

Warren's impressions of the serious nature of the opening conflict caused a correspondence between him and the Admiralty somewhat controversial in tone. Ten days after his arrival he represented the reduced state of the squadron: "The war assumes a new, as well as more active and inveterate aspect than heretofore." Alarming reports were being received as to the number of ships of twenty-two to thirty-two guns fitting out in American ports, and he mentions as significant that the commission of a privateer officer, taken in a recaptured vessel, bore the number 318. At Halifax he was in an atmosphere of rumors and excitement, fed by frequent communication with eastern ports, as well as by continual experience of captures about the neighboring shores; the enemies' crews even landing at times. When he went to Bermuda two months later, so many privateers were met on the line of traffic between the West Indies and the St. Lawrence as to convince him of the number and destructiveness of these vessels, and "of the impossibility of our trade navigating these seas unless a very extensive squadron is employed to scour the vicinity." He was crippled for attempting this by the size of the American frigates, which forbade his dispersing his cruisers. The capture of the "Guerrière" had now been followed by that of the "Macedonian;" and in view of the results, and of Rodgers being again out, he felt compelled to constitute squadrons of two frigates and a sloop. Under these conditions, and with so many convoys to furnish, "it is impracticable to cut off the enemy's resources, or to repress the disorder and pillage which actually exist to a very alarming degree, both on the coast of British America and in the West Indies, as will be seen by the copies of letters enclosed," from colonial and naval officials. He goes on to speak, in terms not carefully weighed, of swarms of privateers and letters-of-marque, their numbers now amounting to six hundred; the crews of which had landed in many points of his Majesty's dominions, and even taken vessels from their anchors in British ports.[512]