228 THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



gland gave to us good cause of rupture ; we barely 

 escaped war witli France in 1798; we were forced 

 into war with England in 1812; and in the course 

 of all these events the hand ^f the Government was 

 restrained, if not paralyzed, by the factious force of 

 symiKithies in the United States, on the one side for 

 France and on the other for England. Hence, alike 

 in the qitasi war with the former, and the declared 

 war with the latter, the results as to the United States 

 were uncertain, imperfect, trivial even, compared with 

 the great objects which might have been accomplish- 

 ed by united counsels. 



On the side of France, however, it must be admit- 

 ted that our disposition to avoid pushing matters to 

 extremities contributed to gain for us the immense 

 benefit of the acquisition of Louisiana. 



Afterward, although the Berlin and Milan Decrees 

 of France and the Orders in Council of Great Britain 

 constituted each alike good cause of war with either, 

 yet the United States held back at vast sacrifice, until 

 continued assertion of the right to impress seamen on 

 board of our* merchant ships, and, indeed, to visit our 

 ships-of-war, and other exaggerations of belligerent 

 right, forced us into war with Great Britain. 



The treaty by which that war was concluded is 

 one of the most unsatisfactory in the annals of the 

 United States. It was absolutely silent in regard to 

 all the subjects of controversy which had occasioned 

 the war. Nothing is said of the belligerent encroach- 

 ments of Great Britain on the neutral rio-hts of the 

 United States, nothing of maritime search, nothing of 



