settlers, being chiefly composed of old British soldiers, and of United Empire Loyalists, who had left their homes in the United States and come to make new ones in Canada, under the shelter of their dearly loved Union Jack, reflected the British feeling to an intensified degree. An animosity, more bitter because the neighbourhood was so close, had sprung up between the two countries.

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To this train of inflammable material the great disturber of Europe indirectly applied the torch. Not only did his stormy career excite the most opposite sympathies in the two nations, but his arbitrary Decree," declaring all British ports in a state of blockade, led to the British retaliation of the celebrated "Orders in Council," which became, at least, the ostensible casus belli. This declaration, asserting the constructive blockade of all French ports, and declaring all products of countries under French rule liable to be seized under any flag, bore very hard upon neutrals, especially upon the Americans, whose merchant marine had, during the engrossment of Europe in war, almost monopolised the carrying trade of the world. On every sea American merchantmen, bound to or from French or British ports, were encountered and captured by cruisers of the hostile nation, but as the British cruisers were by far the more numerous, they did by far the greater damage. To the exasperation occasioned by these events was added, through the selfwilled action of a British commander, the "last straw" which seemed to make war, sooner or later, almost inevitable.

It was an affair very similar to that known about a dozen years ago, as the "Trent Affair," which, had not Britain been more forbearing than America was in similar circumstances, might have provoked another

war.

American station, Captain Humphries, of the Leopard, overhauled the American frigate. Chesapeake, and made a demand for deserters whom he knew to be on board. The demand, being refused, was enforced by a broadside, which compelled the Chesapeake to strike her colours and surrender the deserters, who were afterwards tried and convicted of piracy at Halifax, and one of them executed.

This unauthorized act was officially disavowed by the British Government at once, before a word of remonstrance from America could reach them. Both Admiral and Captain were recalled, and it was further explained that "the right of search, when applied to vessels of war, extended only to a requisition, and could not be carried into effect by force."

But the echoes of the Leopard's guns had awakened a storm in America not easily appeased, and still further stirred up by the inflammatory appeals of demagogues and journalists. The cry "To arms!" seemed to be the cry of the nation. Even clerical dignitaries wrote to the President, Jefferson, asserting that forbearance would be cowardice. Jefferson afterwards claimed the credit of having averted actual hostilities at a time when no other man in the Republic could have held in leash the "dogs of war." Yet, notwithstanding, he did not exercise. the forbearance of waiting for the reparation and disavowal which came so promptly and spontaneously. Without even asking for reparation, he resorted to the proclamation of the celebrated "embargo," excluding British ships from all American ports. In doing this, he declares that he wished to avert war; to introduce into the disputes of nations "another umpire than that of arms;" and it is to be presumed that he was sincere.*

Yet the permission, without disavowal or reparation, of such acts as the attack and capture, by the garrison of Fort Niagara, of seven merchant vessels

of Vice-Admiral Berkeley, of the North

a desire to avoid hostilities, and led Brock and other

Certainly the embargo exercised a most injurious effect on the trade and commerce of America, depreciating property and paralysing industry, especially in New England, where a war with England and a French connection were equally deprecated, and where the feeling, stirred up by the embargo, excited one of the earliest poetic efforts of Lowell, then a boy of thirteen. But there was, undoubtedly, among a large section of the American people, a strong hatred of England and desire to humiliate, especially, her maritime power; and succeeding events indicated, clearly enough, that with many the real object was—in the words of Alison-"to wrest from Britain the Canadas, and, in conjunction with Napoleon, extinguish its maritime and colonial empire." In the meantime the situation was sad enough; on the one side, the artisan population of Great Britain starving for lack of the corn of which their American brethren had such a superabundance, while, on the other side, American planters were half ruined, and American industry crippled, by the refusal to admit British manufactures and merchandise, or permit the exportation of the cotton which was glutting the home market.

In 1809, Jefferson was succeeded by Madison, who repealed the embargo, substituting a non-intercourse Act with England and France. An attempt at negotiating the existing difficulties failed, owing to diplomatic complications; and President Madison, far from inaugurating a more pacific policy, proceeded to keep up and exasperate the warlike sentiments of the people; and, by his treating with Bonaparte, and other actions, showed an evident desire to distinguish his presidency by the conquest of Canada.

which Britain was certainly not the aggressor. The American 44-gun frigate President, in defiance of the avowed principle that vessels of war were not liable to right of search, provoked an encounter with the Little Belt, a small sloop of 18 guns, and shot the latter to pieces. The American captain was tried by court-martial and acquitted amid national exultation; but Great Britain at once forbearingly accepted the official disavowal of hostile instructions.

Notwithstanding this forbearance, however, President Madison, in November, 1811, appealed to the nation for the "sinews of war," and they responded by large votes of money and men, warlike armaments being prepared during the winter. The people were full of sanguine hopes of an easy conquest of Canada. It was presumed that political troubles and transient dissatisfaction, caused by grievances connected with the Executive, had so far weakened Canadian loyalty that the colonists would interpose but a slight resistance, if they did not even welcome the idea of American connection. And England, her hands full, and her attention engrossed by the affairs of Europe, where Wellington was engaged in the struggle with Spain, and Napoleon was pressing on to Moscow at the head of his gigantic army, would, it was believed, have neither leisure nor power effectually to defend her distant colony. Succeeding events showed how far these calculations were correct.

In May, 1811, existing ill-feeling was aggravated by another maritime encounter, in

Canadians to conclude that the U. S. Government,

of bringing it on by provocation.

charge safely home.