34 Naval War of 1812 



by passing an embargo act, which prevented us from 

 trading at all. There could be but one result to 

 such a succession of incidents, and that was war. 

 Accordingly, in June, 1812, war was declared; and 

 as a contest for the rights of seamen, it was largely 

 waged on the ocean. We also had not a little fight 

 ing to do on land, in which, as a rule, we came out 

 second-best. Few or no preparations for the war 

 had been made, and the result was such as might 

 have been anticipated. After dragging on through 

 three dreary and uneventful years it came to an end 

 in 1815, by a peace which left matters in almost pre 

 cisely the state in which the war had found them. 

 On land and water the contest took the form of a 

 succession of petty actions, in which the glory ac 

 quired by the victor seldom eclipsed the disgrace in 

 curred by the vanquished. Neither side succeeded 

 in doing what it intended. Americans declared that 

 Canada must and should be conquered, but the con 

 quering came quite as near being the other way. 

 British writers insisted that the American navy 

 should be swept from the seas; and during the 

 sweeping process it increased fourfold. 



When the United States declared war, Great Brit- 

 am was straining every nerve and muscle in a death 

 struggle with the most formidable military despot 

 ism of modern times, and was obliged to entrust the 

 defence of her Canadian colonies to a mere handful 

 of regulars, aided by the local fencibles. But Con 

 gress had provided even fewer trained soldiers, and 

 relied on the militia. The latter chiefly exercised 



