The War with the United States

The War With the United States

A Chronicle of 1812 Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of
Canada, by William Wood
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Title: The War With the United States A Chronicle of 1812 Volume 14
(of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada
Author: William Wood
Editor: George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
Release Date: January 3, 2005 [EBook #14582]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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WITH THE UNITED STATES ***

This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan.

CHRONICLES OF CANADA Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H.
Langton In thirty-two volumes

Volume 14
THE WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES A Chronicle of 1812
By WILLIAM WOOD TORONTO, 1915

CONTENTS
I. OPPOSING CLAIMS II. OPPOSING FORCES III. 1812: OFF TO
THE FRONT IV. 1812: BROCK AT DETROIT AND QUEENSTON
HEIGHTS V. 1813: THE BEAVER DAMS, LAKE ERIE, AND
CHATEAUGUAY VI. 1814: LUNDY'S LANE, PLATTSBURG, AND
THE GREAT BLOCKADE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
CHAPTER I
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 unrestricted trade with both belligerents. But Napoleon's
Berlin Decree forbade all intercourse whatever with the British, while
the British Orders-in-Council 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 was no safe place for an unarmed, independent, 'free-trading'
neutral. Every one 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 could manage to do so.
But the British seized so many more for infringing the
Orders-in-Council 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 peoples' 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 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 feeling; and most Americans thought they would only
be fulfilling their proper 'destiny' by wresting 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-in-Council and Right of Search on the 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