The War With the United States : A Chronicle of 1812 - William Wood

Скачать книгу

feeling probably animated at least two-thirds of the American people on every question that caused international friction; and the Jeffersonian Democrats, who were in power, were anti-British to a man. So strong was this feeling among them that they continued to side with France even when she was under the military despotism of Napoleon. He was the arch-enemy of England in Europe. They were the arch-enemy of England in America. This alone was enough to overcome their natural repugnance to his autocratic ways. Their position towards the British was such that they could not draw back from France, whose change of government had made her a more efficient anti-British friend. 'Let us unite with France and stand or fall together' was the cry the Democratic press repeated for years in different forms. It was strangely prophetic. Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1808 began its self-injurious career at the same time that the Peninsular War began to make the first injurious breach in Napoleon's Continental System. Madison's declaration of war in 1812 coincided with the opening of Napoleon's disastrous campaign in Russia.

      The Federalists, the party in favour of peace with the British, included many of the men who had done most for Independence; and they were all, of course, above suspicion as patriotic Americans. But they were not unlike transatlantic, self-governing Englishmen. They had been alienated by the excesses of the French Revolution; and they could not condone the tyranny of Napoleon. They preferred American statesmen of the type of Washington and Hamilton to those of the type of Jefferson and Madison. And they were not inclined to be more anti-British than the occasion required. They were strongest in New England and New York. The Democrats were strongest throughout the South and in what was then the West. The Federalists had been in power during the Accommodation period. The Democrats began with Unfriendliness, continued with Hostility, and ended with War.

      The Federalists did not hesitate to speak their mind. Their loss of power had sharpened their tongues; and they were often no more generous to the Democrats and to France than the Democrats were to them and to the British. But, on the whole, they made for goodwill on both sides; as well as for a better understanding of each other's rights and difficulties; and so they made for peace. The general current, however, was against them, even before the Chesapeake affair; and several additional incidents helped to quicken it afterwards. In 1808 the toast of the President of the United States was received with hisses at a great public dinner in London, given to the leaders of the Spanish revolt against Napoleon by British admirers. In 1811 the British sloop-of-war Little Belt was overhauled by the American frigate President fifty miles off-shore and forced to strike, after losing thirty-two men and being reduced to a mere battered hulk. The vessels came into range after dark; the British seem to have fired first; and the Americans had the further excuse that they were still smarting under the Chesapeake affair. Then, in 1812, an Irish adventurer called Henry, who had been doing some secret-service work in the United States at the instance of the Canadian governor-general, sold the duplicates of his correspondence to President Madison. These were of little real importance; but they added fuel to the Democratic fire in Congress just when anti-British feeling was at its worst.

      The fourth cause of war, the desire to conquer Canada, was by far the oldest of all. It was older than Independence, older even than the British conquest of Canada. In 1689 Peter Schuyler, mayor of Albany, and the acknowledged leader of the frontier districts, had set forth his 'Glorious Enterprize' for the conquest and annexation of New France. Phips's American invasion next year, carried out in complete independence of the home government, had been an utter failure. So had the second American invasion, led by Montgomery and Arnold during the Revolutionary War, nearly a century later. But the Americans had not forgotten their long desire; and the prospect of another war at once revived their hopes. They honestly believed that Canada would be much better off as an integral part of the United States than as a British colony; and most of them believed that Canadians thought so too. The lesson of the invasion of the 'Fourteenth Colony' during the Revolution had not been learnt. The alacrity with which Canadians had stood to arms after the Chesapeake affair was little heeded. And both the nature and the strength of the union between the colony and the Empire were almost entirely misunderstood.

      Henry Clay, one of the most warlike of the Democrats, said: 'It is absurd to suppose that we will not succeed in our enterprise against the enemy's Provinces. I am not for stopping at Quebec or anywhere else; but I would take the whole continent from them, and ask them no favours. I wish never to see peace till we do. God has given us the power and the means. We are to blame if we do not use them.' Eustis, the American Secretary of War, said: 'We can take Canada without soldiers. We have only to send officers into the Provinces, and the people, disaffected towards their own Government, will rally round our standard.' And Jefferson summed it all up by prophesying that 'the acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighbourhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching.' When the leaders talked like this, it was no wonder their followers thought that the long-cherished dream of a conquered Canada was at last about to come true.

       Table of Contents

      An armed mob must be very big indeed before it has the slightest chance against a small but disciplined army.

      So very obvious a statement might well be taken for granted in the history of any ordinary war. But '1812' was not an ordinary war. It was a sprawling and sporadic war; and it was waged over a vast territory by widely scattered and singularly heterogeneous forces on both sides. For this reason it is extremely difficult to view and understand as one connected whole. Partisan misrepresentation has never had a better chance. Americans have dwelt with justifiable pride on the frigate duels out at sea and the two flotilla battles on the Lakes. But they have usually forgotten that, though they won the naval battles, the British won the purely naval war. The mother-country British, on the other hand, have made too much of their one important victory at sea, have passed too lightly over the lessons of the other duels there, and have forgotten how long it took to sweep the Stars and Stripes away from the Atlantic. Canadians have, of course, devoted most attention to the British victories won in the frontier campaigns on land, which the other British have heeded too little and Americans have been only too anxious to forget. Finally, neither the Canadians, nor the mother-country British, nor yet the Americans, have often tried to take a comprehensive view of all the operations by land and sea together.

      The character and numbers of the opposing forces have been even less considered and even more misunderstood. Militia victories have been freely claimed by both sides, in defiance of the fact that the regulars were the really decisive factor in every single victory won by either side, afloat or ashore. The popular notions about the numbers concerned are equally wrong. The totals were far greater than is generally known. Counting every man who ever appeared on either side, by land or sea, within the actual theatre of war, the united grand total reaches seven hundred thousand. This was most unevenly divided between the two opponents. The Americans had about 575,000, the British about 125,000. But such a striking difference in numbers was matched by an equally striking difference in discipline and training. The Americans had more than four times as many men. The British had more than four times as much discipline and training.

      The forces on the American side were a small navy and a swarm of privateers, a small regular army, a few 'volunteers,' still fewer 'rangers,' and a vast conglomeration of raw militia. The British had a detachment from the greatest navy in the world, a very small 'Provincial Marine' on the Lakes and the St. Lawrence, besides various little subsidiary services afloat, including privateers. Their army consisted of a very small but latterly much increased contingent of Imperial regulars, a few Canadian regulars, more Canadian militia, and a very few Indians. Let us pass all these forces in review.

      The American Navy. During the Revolution the infant Navy had begun a career of brilliant promise; and Paul Jones had been a name to conjure with. British belittlement deprived him of his proper place in history; but he was really the founder of the regular Navy that fought so gallantly in '1812.' A tradition had been created and a service had been formed. Political opinion, however, discouraged proper growth. President Jefferson laid down the Democratic party's idea of naval policy

Скачать книгу