THE ANGLO-AMERICAN MAGAZINE. Vol. II. TORONTO: JANUARY, 1853.-No. 1. A HISTORY OF THE WAR where peace, to either side, was in an emin BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED DURING THE YEARS 1812, 1813, & 1814. "Ferrum quo graves Persæ melius perirent." ent degree prosperity, happiness, and wisdom; —this is our undertaking, and the occasion of it we well may, as we do, most conscientiously deplore. In such a strife of brothers, victory, even on our own side, is not recorded without pain, the pain which a man feels when he INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS ON THE CAUSES OF THE discovers that the errors of human conduct WAR. CHAPTER I. have given him an enemy where, in the ties of common language and race, Divine Provi From the Berlin Decree to the close of Mr. dence, he might argue, had designed that he Jefferson's Second Administration. 21st Nov., 1806.... ..3rd March, 1809. should find a friend. The late war with the United States, is not the only contest in the world's history, which warns us that the perPreliminary remarks. AN historical narrative manent peace of nations, is not to be implicitly which wilfully offends against truth, or distorts trusted to the mere physical circumstance of it to serve party purposes, is an imposture; their being "gentes unius labii; " yet the conand one that is devoid of feeling is a skeletonsciousness that we have fought, even in selfthe one, unprincipled; the other, spiritless and defence, with those who speak the same tongue forbidding. We, in the discharge of our hum- and claim the same lineage with ourselves, ble office, will strive to eschew both; keeping will be felt to damp the ardor of triumph in clear, to the best of our ability, of the lively, the moment of victory, and to cloud its remembut prejudiced and disingenuous political brance afterwards. To this feeling we are not pamphlet, on the one hand; and of the insensible; yet, at the same time, it would be dry and meagre outline of the mere an- affectation in us to disguise the satisfaction we nalist, on the other. We write, jealously derive from the conviction that the War of observant of truth, so far as we can discern it; 1812 was attended with, at least, one good result. but, at the same time, we are not ashamed to It shewed that Canada, as to her deliberate confess that we write with emotion,-as from preference of British connection, and her devothe heart, and a heart too, which, to its last tion to the British throne, was sound to the pulsation, will remain true, we hope, to the heart's core. By declaimers in Congress--who glorious British constitution. To tell of gradual refused to hear the voice of reason from the estrangement and final collision, where nature just and sensible minority in that Legislature herself, no less than interest, urged to close the loyalty of Canada was impeached,-alliance; to recite, the afflicting details of war, spoken of as a thing of nought, to be corrupted by the first offered bribe, detached from its hollow adherence to British rule by the first military proclamation, or daunted by the first gleam of the Republican bayonets. Transported with the genuine spirit of democratic inebriation, these Congress declaimers were never able, for a moment, to entertain the idea of loyalty, superior to all the arts and enchantments of democratic seduction, growing up to any extent under the mild and equitable and parental rule of Great Britain:-of filial love incorruptible, inseparably weaving itself round the time-honored institutions of a monarchy popular, free, and engrossing the hearts of its subjects. Disaffection, in their judgment, prevailed far and wide in Canada: disaffection, according to their confident but not very statesman-like vaticinations, was to afford them an easy conquest. The mass of our population were to rush into their arms: very different was the spirit which our invaders, when they crossed the line, found amongst us,--they found a spirit, not fondly anticipating their embrace, but sternly prepared to grapple with them in mortal conflict; not pliant for proselytism, but nerved for battle; and they found that spirit (we say it not in bitterness, but we say it with honest pride), they found that spirit too much for them. Their invasion was repelled; and with it were repelled likewise their groundless imputations against the fidelity and attachment of the Canadas to the parent state. Thus had Canada the credit of contributing her quota to the brilliant evidence which history supplies-in patriotic struggles and sacrifices such as the peasant-warfare of the Tyrol, and the conflagration of Moscow-that monarchy may evoke in its behalf a spirit of chivalrous devotion, and implant a depth of religious faith, equal even in the strength and vigor and courage of the moment, to democratic fervor, and infinitely superior to it in sustained effort and patient endurance. As to the gallant spirit and the bold deeds of our adversaries, sorry should we be-with our eyes open to their merit-to depreciate them as they, in their imperfect knowledge of us, depreciated our loyalty. Whilst we frankly bear testimony to their skill and their valor, -on the lakes and sea more especially; whilst we confess that the energy and the success with which they worked their diminutive navy commanded the respect, and even awakened the fears of Great Britain; we do not forget that their enterprise by land ended in discomfiture, and that Canada was greatly instrumental to that discomfiture. It was by the side of a mere handful of British troops that our Canadian militia achieved the expulsion of the invading foe; and, what is more, we do not regard it as an extravagant supposition that, had the Mother Country been unable to send them a single soldier, but regular officers only, to discipline and lead them, their own true hearts and strong arms-so thoroughly was their spirit roused-would, unaided, have won the day. Be this as it may; Canada did her part, and nobly too. Far be it from us to think of casting away or of unworthily hiding the laurels which she has gained; though most sincere is our desire to interweave with them for aye the olive branch of peace. Many of her native sons who took up arms in her defence, are still living amongst us, honored as they deserve to be; and so long as they shall be spared to us (and may Almighty God spare them long), we trust that political vicissitude will not bring them the mortification of seeing the great principle of British supremacy for which they bore the musket and drew the sword, falling into anything like general disrepute. And when, in obedience to the common destiny of men, they shall have been removed, may their spirit long survive them, animating the bosoms of an equally gallant and loyal race in generations yet unborn, and cherished as a pearl of great price by an affectionate mother country, in "the adoption and steady prosecution of a good system of colonial government." We proceed now to take up, in the order of time, the causes of the war. bled from attempting his revenge where the ruinous catastrophe had befallen him,-on the sea, from which his fleets had been swept by the skill and courage and maritime genius of his island-foe; he put forth the full strength of his passionate nature and his prodigious energies to accomplish on the land, where his arms had been hitherto irresistable, those plans merchandise were glad to be allowed to compound for their valuable goods with the large payment of £800,000. The Berlin Decree obviously, then, was not-as politicians in the United States would have it—a dead letter. British Order in emergency, t Pressed by this unusual and threatening y,the British Ministry were evidently forced to adopt defensive measures. Accordingly, on the 7th January, 1807, the Order in Council, which will be found in the note below, was issued,--being the first of those for the destruction of British commerce, which —as Mr. Alison has described them-were owing to "no momentary burst of anger or sudden fit of exultation; but the result of much thought and anxious deliberation." These plans were embodied in the famous manifesto which is known by the name of "the At the Court at the Queen's Palace, January Berlin Decree," having been issued on the 21st November, 1806, from the subjugated court of the unfortunate King of Prussia. The Berlin Decree is an ordinance familiar to all, mainly through the medium of Mr. Alison's widely circulated history; but in order to make our present publication as complete in itself as we can, we will introduce the eleven articles of the Decree,* as they appear in that admirable work to which, no less than to its own extraordinary pretensions, the Berlin Decrec is likely to be indebted for immortality. Rigorous execution of the Decree. * BRITISH ORDER OF COUNCIL. 7, 1807. PRESENT, The King's Most Excellent Majesty in Council. "Whereas the French Government has issued certain orders, which, in violation of the usages of war, purport to prohibit the commerce of all neutral nations with his majestys dominions; and also to prevent such nations from trading with any other country in any articles the growth, produce, or manufacture of his majesty's dominions; and whereas the said Government has also taken upon itself to declare all his Majesty's dominions to be in a state of blockade, at a time when the fleets of France and her allies are themselves confined within their own ports, by the superior valour and discipline of the British navy; and whereas such attempts on the part of the enemy would give to his majesty an unquestionable right of retaliation, and would warrant his majesty in enforcing the same prohibition of all commerce with France, which that power vainly hopes to effect against the commerce of his majesty's subjects, a prohibition which the superiority of his majesty's naval forces might enable him to support, by actually investing the ports and coasts of the enemy with numerous squadrons and cruisers, so as to make the entrance or approach thereto manifestly dan It is undoubtedly correct to consider Buonaparte's anathema against British commerce as being, in one sense, extravagant and frantic, for it introduced a system of warfare unparalleled in the annals of civilized nations, and the menaces it expressed very far exceeded the ability of its author to carry them out. It is, however, quite contrary to fact, to represent it as a mere ebullition of rage, and a proceed-gerous; and whereas his majesty, though unwilling ing utterly Quixotic and impracticable. It said, in effect, to Great Britain,-" The French Emperor declares that you shall have no trade;" and, although the extinction of British trade was greatly beyond his power, there is no question that he was able to inflict upon it, and did inflict upon it, serious damage. The Berlin Decree was far from being a vapoury threat. It did not, by any means, resolve itself into empty air, but was rigorously executed; and the losses known to have been suffered under its operation were in many instances extremely severe. In the Hans Towns, for example, the proprietors of English * See Decree at end of chapter. to follow the example of his enemies, by proceeding to an extremity so distressing to all nations not engaged in the war, and carrying on their accustomed trade, yet feels himself bound by a due regard to the just defence of the rights and interests of his people, not to suffer such measures to be taken by the enemy, without taking some steps on his part to restrain this violence, and to return upon them the evils of their own injustice; his majesty is thereupon pleased, by and with the advice of his privy council, to order, and it is hereby ordered, that no vessel shall be permitted to trade from one port to another, both which ports shall belong to, or be in the possession of France or her allies, or shall be so far under their control as that British vessels may not freely trade thereat; and the commanders of his majesty's ships of. war and privateers shall be, and are hereby instructed to warn every neutral vessel coming from any such port, and destined to another such port, to discontinue her voyage, and not to proceed to two memorable Orders which, unhappily, con- This would have put the United States to the tributed to aggravate the prejudices previously test. Had they acquiesced, their French symentertained against Great Britain by a large pathies would have stood confessed, and the majority of the inhabitants of the United pretext of a grievance-not discovered until States, and supplied the ostensible, but-as an interval of some months had elapsed*—in circumstances, to be hereafter noticed, entitle the Order in Council, would have been comus to argue-not the real ground for the War pletely shut out; had they remonstrated; of 1812. It is well to bear in mind that this that would have been taking part with justice, Order was not the production of a Tory Min- and Buonaparte might have given way. Or→→ istry; but of a Whig Cabinet, headed by Mr. on the other hand-the boldest course of all Fox,-a man who will hardly be charged with might have been pursued, and the whole any bias towards the arbitrary exercise of the strength of our irresistible navy sent to lay influence and power of the British Crown. It waste the French coast from Ostend to Bais still more important to remark that, when yonne, which would soon have brought BuonaMr. Munroe, the United States Minister in parte to reason, and made him consider deliverLondon, communicated the Order to his ance from such a scourge--the severity of government, he did so with comments expres- which he had good cause to know and dread sive of concurrence and satisfaction. "The cheaply purchased by the abrogation of his spirit of this Order," observes Mr. Alison, "was Decree. The British Government, however, to deprive the French, and all the nations sub-resolved on a middle course; and published ject to their control, which had embraced the the "Order in Council," which, whilst it was Continental system, of the advantages of the insufficient to repel the violence of the enemy, coasting trade in neutral bottoms: and, con- assisted afterwards to bring on collision with sidering the much more violent and extensive a neutral power. Still-as we have said. and character of the Berlin Decree, there can be will repeat-the Order in Council, if it were no doubt that it was a very mild and lenient comparatively feeble and inefficient, stands measure of retaliation." nevertheless, as to justice, on a position perfectly unassailable. The Order in Council though strictly just, not perhaps the best course open to the British Government. The issuing of the Or der in Council, though just and defensible, was, perhaps, an infelicitous proceeding. The British Government might have tried instead one or other of two expedients, either of which, as matters turned out, would probably have answered better than that which was adopted. If they would not have been justified in treating the Emperor's fulmination with contempt; they might on the one hand-have paused, at least, to ascertain whether neutral powers would acquiesce in his furious enactment. any such port; and any vessel, after being so warned, or any vessel coming from any such port, after a reasonable time shall have been afforded for receiving information of this his majesty's orders which shall be found proceeding to another Buch port, shall be captured and brought in, and, together with her cargo, shall be condemned as lawful prize. And his majesty's principal secretaries of state, the lords commissioners of the admiralty, and the judges of the high court of admiralty, and courts of vice admiralty, are to take the necessary measures herein as to them shall respectively appertain. W. FAWKENER. The United States raise no voice against The alternative of obBuonaparte's Decree. servant inactivity might have been tried at the outset; but certainly could not have been long maintained; and must have given place soon to energetic resistance. Whilst the Berlin Decree was being unsparingly executed, the neutral nations of Denmark, Portugal, and the United Statesby abstaining from remonstrance-received it, as we are warranted in considering, with at least silent acquiescence. The silence of the United States is the more to be deplored, because that country-remote from the theatre of war, and completely secure from any attempt of Buonaparte to shut up its portsmight have spoken out in frank and honest terms with safety. It is to be regretted, however, that the current of public feeling had already begun to set the other way. When tidings of the first aggression on the part of the French Emperor reached them, no voice *The first notice of it is to be found in the President's angry message of October 27, 1807. |