A School History of the United States by John Bach McMaster

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%252. The Berlin Decree.%--Napoleon waited to retaliate till
November, 1806, when he issued the Berlin Decree,[1] declaring the
British Islands to be blockaded.

[Footnote 1: So called because he was at Berlin when he issued it.]

%253. Orders in Council, 1807.%--Great Britain felt that every time
Napoleon struck at her she must strike back at him, and in January,
1807, a new Order in Council forbade neutrals to trade from one European
port to another, if both were in the possession of France or her allies.
Finding it had no effect, she followed it up with another Order in
Council in November, 1807, which declared that every port on the face
of the earth from which for any reason British ships were excluded was
shut to neutrals, unless they first stopped at some British port and
obtained a license to trade.

%254. The Milan Decree, 1807.%--It was now Napoleon's turn to strike,
which he did in December, 1807, by issuing the Milan Decree.[1]
Thenceforth any ship that submitted to be searched by British cruisers
or took out a British license, or entered any port from which French
ships were excluded, was to be captured wherever found.

[Footnote 1: So called because he was in Milan at the time, and dated it
from that city.]

As a result of this series of French Decrees and British Orders in
Council,[2] the English took 194 of our ships, and the French almost
as many.

[Footnote 2: On the Orders in Council and French Decrees, read Adams's
_History of the United States_, Vol. III., Chap. 16; Vol. IV., Chaps. 4,
5, and 6; McMaster's _History_, Vol. III., pp. 219-223;
249-250; 272-274.]

%255. Jefferson's Policy; Non-importation Act.%--The policy by which
Jefferson proposed to meet this emergency consisted of three parts:

1. Lay up the frigates and defend our coast and harbors by a number of
small, swift-sailing craft, each carrying one gun in the stern. In time
of peace they were to be hauled up under sheds. In time of war they were
to be shoved into the water and manned by volunteers. Between 1806 and
1812, 176 of these gunboats were built.

2. Make a new treaty with Great Britain, because that made by Jay in
1794 was to expire in 1806. Under the instructions of Jefferson,
therefore, Monroe and Pinckney signed a new treaty in December, 1806.
But it said nothing about the impressment of our sailors, or about the
right of our ships to go where they pleased, and was so bad in general
that Jefferson would not even send it to the Senate.[3]

[Footnote 3: No treaty can become a law unless approved by the President
and two thirds of the Senate.]

3. The third part of his policy consisted in doing what we should call
"boycotting." He wanted a law which would forbid the importation into
the United States of any article made, grown, or produced in Great
Britain or any of her colonies. Congress accordingly, in April, 1806,
passed what was called a "Non-importation Act," which prohibited not the
importation of every sort of British goods, wares, and merchandise, but
only a few which the people could make in this country; as paper, cards,
leather goods, etc. This was to go into force at the President's
pleasure.

%256. The Chesapeake and the Leopard.%--Such an attempt to punish
Great Britain by cutting off a part of her trade was useless, and only
made her more insolent than before. Indeed, just a week after the
President signed the non-importation bill, as one of our coasting
vessels was entering the harbor of New York, a British vessel, wishing
to stop and search her, fired a shot which struck the helmsman and
killed him at the wheel.

About a year later, June, 1807, an attack more outrageous still was made
on our frigate _Chesapeake_. She was on her way from Washington to the
Mediterranean, and was still in sight of land when a British vessel, the
_Leopard_, hailed and stopped her and sent an officer on board with a
demand for the delivery of deserters from the English navy. The captain
of the _Chesapeake_ refused, the officer returned, and the _Leopard_
opened fire. To return the fire was impossible, for only a few of the
guns of the _Chesapeake_ were mounted. At last one was discharged, and
as by that time three men had been killed and eighteen wounded,
Commander Barron of the _Chesapeake_ surrendered. Four men then were
taken from her deck. Three were Americans. One was an Englishman, and he
was hanged for desertion.[1]

[Footnote 1: Maclay's _History of the Navy_, Vol. I., pp. 305-308;
McMaster's _History_, Vol. III., pp. 255-259.]

%257. The Long Embargo.%--The attack on the _Chesapeake_ ought to
have been followed by war. But Jefferson merely demanded reparation from
Great Britain, and when Congress met in December, 1807, asked for an
embargo. The request was granted, and merchant vessels in all the ports
of the United States were forbidden to sail for a foreign country till
the President saw fit to suspend the law. The restriction was so
sweeping and the damage done to American farmers, merchants, and
shipowners so great, that the people began to evade it at once. They
would send their vessels to New Orleans and stop at the West Indies on
the way. They would send their flour, pork, rice, and lumber to St.
Marys in Georgia and smuggle it over the river to Florida, or take it to
the islands near Eastport in Maine and then smuggle it into New
Brunswick. Because of this, more stringent embargo laws were passed, and
finally, in 1809, a "Force Act," to compel obedience. But smuggling went
on so openly that there was nothing to do but use troops or lift the
embargo. In February, 1809, accordingly, the embargo laws, after
fourteen months' duration, were repealed. Instead of them the
Republicans enacted a Non-intercourse law which allowed the people to
trade with all nations except England and France.[1]

[Footnote 1: McMaster's _History_, Vol. III., pp. 279-338; Adams's
_History_, Vol. IV., Chaps. 7, 11, 13, 15.]

%258. Jefferson refuses a Third Term.%--During 1806, the states of
New Jersey, Vermont,[2] Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Maryland,
Georgia, and North Carolina invited Jefferson to be President a third
time. For a while he made no reply, but in December, 1807, he declined,
and gave this reason: "That I should lay down my charge at a proper
period is as much a duty as to have borne it faithfully. If some
termination to the services of the Chief Magistrate be not fixed by the
Constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally four years,
will in fact become for life; and history shows how easily that
degenerates into an inheritance." This wise answer was heartily
approved by the people all over the country, and with Washington's
similar action established a custom which has been generally followed
ever since.

[Footnote 2: Vermont was admitted into the Union in 1791 (p. 243).]

As Jefferson would not accept a third term, a caucus of Republican
members of Congress met one evening at the Capitol in Washington and
nominated James Madison and George Clinton. The Federalists held no
caucus, but agreed among themselves to support C.C. Pinckney and Rufus
King. Madison and Clinton were easily elected, and were sworn into
office March 4, 1809.

[Illustration: James Madison]

%259. The Macon Bill; Non-intercourse.%--When Congress met in 1809
one more effort was made to force France and England to respect our
rights on the sea. Non-importation had failed. The embargo had failed.
Non-intercourse had failed, and now in desperation they passed a law
which at the time was called the "Macon Bill," from the member of
Congress who introduced it. This restored trade with France and England,
but declared that if either would withdraw its Decrees or Orders, the
United States would stop all trade with the other.

%260. Trickery of Napoleon.%--And now Napoleon came forward and
assured the American minister that the Berlin and Milan Decrees should
be recalled on November 1, 1810, provided the United States would
restore non-intercourse with England. To this Madison agreed, and on
November 1, 1810, issued a proclamation saying that unless Great Britain
should, before February 1, 1811, recall her Orders in Council, trade
with her should stop on that day. Great Britain did not recall her
Orders, and in February, 1811, we once more ceased to trade with her.

Trade with France was resumed on November 1, 1810, and of course a great
fleet of merchants went off to French ports. But they were no sooner
there than the villainy of Napoleon was revealed, for on December 25, by
general order, every American ship in the French ports was seized, and
$10,000,000 worth of American property was confiscated. He had not
recalled his Decrees, but pretended to do so in order to get the
American goods and provisions which he sorely needed.

It is surprising how patient the Americans of those days were. But their
patience as to Great Britain now gave out, and our minister at London
was recalled in 1811. This alarmed the British, who promptly began to
take steps to keep the peace, and offered to make amends for the
_Leopard-Chesapeake_ outrage which had occurred four years before (June,
1807). They agreed to replace the three American sailors on the deck of
the _Chesapeake_ and did so (June, 1812). But the day for peaceful
settlement was gone. The people were aroused and angry, and this feeling
showed itself in many ways.

%261. The President and the Little Belt.%--In the early part of May,
1811, a British frigate was cruising off the harbor of New York with her
name _Guerriere_ painted in large letters on her fore-topsail, and one
day her captain stopped an American vessel as it was about to enter New
York, and impressed a citizen of the United States. Three years earlier
this outrage would have been made the subject of a proclamation. Now,
the moment it was known at Washington, an order was sent to Captain
Rogers of the frigate _President_ to go to sea at once, search for the
_Guerriere_, and demand the delivery of the man, Rogers was only too
glad to go, and soon came in sight of a vessel which looked like the
_Guerriere_; but it was half-past eight o'clock at night before he came
within speaking distance. A battle followed and lasted till the stranger
became unmanageable, when the _President_ stopped firing; and the next
morning Rogers found that his enemy was the British twenty-two-gun ship,
_Little Belt_.

%262. The War Congress.%--Another way in which the anger of the
people showed itself was in the election, in the autumn of 1810, of a
Congress which met in December, 1811, fully determined to make war on
Great Britain. In that Congress were two men who from that day on for
forty years were great political leaders. One was John C. Calhoun of
South Carolina; the other was Henry Clay of Kentucky.

Clay was made Speaker of the House of Representatives, and under his
lead preparations were instantly begun for war, which was finally
declared June 18, 1812. There was no Atlantic cable in those days. Had
there been, it is very doubtful if war would have been declared; for on
June 23, 1812, five days after Congress authorized Madison to issue the
proclamation, the Orders in Council were recalled.

The causes of war, as set forth in the proclamation, were:

1. Tampering with the Indians, and urging them to attack our citizens on
the frontier.

2. Interfering with our trade by the Orders in Council.

3. Putting cruisers off our ports to stop and search our vessels.

4. Impressing our sailors, of whom more than 6000 were in the British
service.

SUMMARY

1. One reason which led Napoleon to sell Louisiana was his determination
to go to war with England. This he did in 1803.

2. Renewal of war in Europe made the United States again a neutral
nation, and brought up the old quarrel over neutral rights.

3.In 1806, Napoleon, who was master of nearly all western Europe, cut
off British trade with the continent. Great Britain in return declared,
by an Order in Council, the coast from Brest to the Elbe blockaded; that
is, shut to neutral trade.

4. Later in the year 1806 Napoleon retaliated with the Berlin Decree,
declaring the British Islands blockaded.

5. Great Britain, by another Order in Council (1807), shut all European
ports, under French control, to neutrals.

6. Napoleon struck back with the Milan Decree.

7. Our commerce was now attacked by both powers, and to force them to
repeal their Decrees and Orders in Council, certain commercial
restrictions were adopted by the United States.

A. Non-importation, 1806.
B. Embargo, 1807-1809.
C. Non-intercourse, 1809.

8. Each of them failed to have any effect, and in 1812 war was declared.

[Illustration]

%1803. Renewal of War between France and Great Britain%
-----------------------------+-------------------------------
|
-------------+--------------
The United States a neutral.
-------------+--------------
|
+----------------+-------------------+----------------------------------+
| | |
_British views of _American views._ _Napoleon's view._
neutrality._ ------------^----------- ------------^----------
------------^------------------ Free ships, free goods. Shall be no neutrals.
The broken voyage. No paper blockades. -------------^-------------
The new Admiralty ruling. No search. Attacks neutral commerce by
Stations vessels off our ports. No impressment. -------------v-------------
Retaliates for French Decrees -----------v----------- |
by | |
--------------v---------------- -----------^----------- |
| / Non-importation. \ French decrees.
| | Long embargo. | -------^-------
Orders in Council. }---------< Non-intercourse with >-------------/ 1806. Berlin.
| France and Great | \ 1807. Milan.
\ Britain. /
-----------v-----------
|
+---------------------------+
|
---------------^---------------
Great Britain denies that French \ / France pretends to lift Berlin
Decrees are lifted, and / -- -------------------- < and Milan Decrees.
Refuses to revoke the Orders \ \ Trade with France is restored.
in Council. |
Tampers with Indians. > --------------+
Insists on the right of search | |
and impressment. / |
|
%DECLARATION OF WAR BY UNITED STATES, 1812.%

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WAR FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE

%263. Fighting on the Frontier.%--"Mr. Madison's War," as the
Federalists delighted to call our war for commercial independence,
opened with three armies in the field ready to invade and capture
Canada. One under Hull, then governor of the territory of Michigan, was
to cross the river at Detroit, and march eastward through Canada. A
second, under General Van Rensselaer, was to cross the Niagara River,
take Queenstown, and join Hull, after which the two armies were to
capture York, now Toronto, and go on eastward toward Montreal. Meantime,
the third army, under Dearborn, was to go down Lake Champlain, and meet
the troops under Hull and Van Rensselaer before Montreal. The three were
then to capture Montreal and Quebec, and complete the conquest
of Canada.

The plan failed; for Hull was driven from Canada, and surrendered his
army and the whole Northwest, at Detroit; Van Rensselaer, defeated at
Queenstown, was unable even to get a footing in Canada; while Dearborn,
after reaching the northern boundary line of New York, stopped, and the
year 1812 ended with nothing accomplished.

The surrender of Hull filled the people with indignation, aroused their
patriotism, and forced the government to gather a new army for the
recapture of Detroit. The command was given to William Henry Harrison,
who hurried from Cincinnati across the wilderness of Ohio, and in the
dead of winter reached the shores of Lake Erie. General Winchester, who
commanded part of the troops, was now called on to drive the British
from Frenchtown, a little hamlet on the river Raisin, and (in January,
1813) tried to do so. But the British and Indians came down on him in
great numbers, and defeated and captured his army, after which the
Indians were allowed to massacre and scalp the wounded.

[Illustration: The Canadian Frontier and Vicinity of Washington]

And now the British became aggressive, invaded Ohio, and attacked the
Americans under Harrison at Fort Meigs, and then at Fort Stephenson,
where Major Croghan and 160 men, with the aid of one small cannon,
defeated and drove off 320 Canadians and Indians.

%264. Battle of Lake Erie.%--Again the Americans in turn became
aggressive. Since the early winter, a young naval officer named Oliver
Hazard Perry had been hard at work, with a gang of ship carpenters, at
Erie, in Pennsylvania, cutting down trees, and had used this green
timber to build nine small vessels. With this fleet he sailed, in
September, in search of the British squadron, which had been just as
hastily built, and soon found it near Sandusky, Ohio. His own ship he
had named the _Lawrence_, in honor of a gallant American captain who had
been killed a few months before in a battle with an English frigate. As
Perry saw the enemy in the distance, he flung to the breeze a blue flag
on which was inscribed, "Don't give up the ship" (the dying order of
Lawrence to his men), sailed down to meet the enemy, and fought the two
largest British ships till the _Lawrence_ was a wreck. Then, with his
flag on his arm, he jumped into a boat, and amidst a shower of shot and
bullets was rowed to the _Niagara_. Once on her deck, he again hastened
to the attack, broke the British line of battle, and captured the entire
fleet. His dispatch to Harrison is as famous as his victory: "We have
met the enemy, and they are ours--two ships, two brigs, one schooner,
and one sloop."

%265. Battle of the Thames.%--Perry's victory was a grand one. It
gave him command of Lake Erie, and enabled him to carry Harrison's
soldiers over to Canada, where, on the Thames River, Harrison defeated
the British and Indians. These two victories regained all that had been
lost by the surrender of Hull.

Along the New York border little was done during 1813. The Americans
made a raid into Canada, and to their shame burned York. The British
attacked Sacketts Harbor and were driven off. The Americans sent an
expedition down the St. Lawrence against Montreal, but the leaders got
frightened and took refuge in northern New York.

%266. Campaign of 1814.%--In 1814 better officers were put in
command, and before winter came the Americans, under Jacob Brown and
Winfield Scott, had won the battles of Chippewa and Lundys Lane, and
captured Fort Erie. But the British returned in force, burned Black Rock
and Buffalo in revenge for the burning of York, and forced the Americans
to leave Canada.

The fighting along the Niagara River, by holding the army in that place,
prevented the Americans from attacking Montreal, and enabled the
British to gather a fleet on Lake Champlain, and send an army down from
Quebec to invade New York state just as Burgoyne had in 1777. But the
land force was defeated by General Macomb at Plattsburg, while Thomas
McDonough utterly destroyed the fleet in Plattsburg Bay. This was one of
the great victories of the war.

%267. The Sea Fights.%--While our army on the frontier was
accomplishing little, our war ships were winning victory after victory
on the sea. At the opening of the war, our navy was the subject of
English ridicule and contempt. We had sixteen ships; she had 1200. She
laughed at ours as "fir-built things with a bit of striped bunting at
their mastheads." But before 1813 came, these "fir-built things" had
destroyed her naval supremacy.[1] With the details of all these
victories on the sea we will not concern ourselves. Yet a few must be
mentioned because the fame of them still endures, and because they are
examples of naval warfare in the days when the ships fought lashed
together, and when the boarders, cutlass and pistol in hand, climbed
over the bulwarks and met the enemy on his own deck, man to man. During
1812 the frigate _Constitution_, whose many victories won her the name
of "Old Ironsides," sank the _Guerriere_; the _United States_ captured
and brought to port the _Macedonian_; and the _Wasp_, a little sloop of
eighteen guns, after the most desperate engagement of the whole war,
captured the British sloop _Frolic_.

[Footnote 1: One reason for the success of the American navy was the
experience it had gained in the clash with France, and also in a war
with Tripoli in 1801-1805. At that time the Christian nations whose
ships sailed the Mediterranean Sea were accustomed to pay annual tribute
to Tripoli and other piratical states on the north coast of Africa,
under pain of having their ships seized and their sailors reduced to
slavery. A dispute with the United States led to a war which gained for
our ships the freedom of the Mediterranean.]

When these sloops were some two hundred feet apart, the _Wasp_ opened
with musketry and cannon. The sea, lashed into fury by a two days'
cyclone, was running mountain high. The vessels rolled till the muzzles
of their guns dipped in the water. But the crews cheered lustily and
the fight went on. When at last the crew of the _Wasp_ boarded the
_Frolic_, they were amazed to find that, save the man at the wheel and
three officers who threw down their swords, not a living soul was
visible. The crew had gone below to avoid the terrible fire of the
_Wasp_. Scarcely was the battle over when the British frigate
_Poictiers_ bore down under a press of sail, recaptured what was left of
the _Frolic_, and took the _Wasp_ in addition.

During 1813 the _Constitution_ took the _Java_; the _Hornet_ sank the
_Peacock_; the _Enterprise_ captured the _Boxer_ off Portland, Maine.
These and many more made up the list of American victories. But there
were British victories also. The _Argus_, after destroying twenty-seven
vessels in the English Channel, was taken by the _Pelican_; the _Essex_,
after a marvelous cruise around South America, was captured by two
frigates. The _Chesapeake_ was forced to strike to the _Shannon._

The _Chesapeake_ was at anchor in Boston harbor, in command of James
Lawrence, when the British frigate _Shannon_ ran in and challenged her.
Lawrence went out at once, and after a short, fierce fight was defeated
and killed. As his men were carrying him below, mortally wounded, he
cried, "Don't give up the ship!" words which Perry, as we have seen,
afterwards put on his flag, and which his countrymen have never since
forgotten.[1]

[Footnote 1: On the naval war read Maclay's _History of the Navy_, Part
Third; Roosevelt's _Naval War of 1812_; McMaster, Vol. IV., pp. 70-108.]

%268. The British blockade the Coast.%--Never, in the course of her
existence, had England suffered such a series of defeats as we inflicted
on her navy in 1812 and 1813. The record of those years caused a
tremendous excitement in Great Britain, all the vessels she could spare
were sent over, and with the opening of 1814, the whole coast of the
United States was declared to be in a state of blockade.[1] In New
England, Eastport (Moose Island) and Nantucket Island quickly fell. A
British force went up the Penobscot to Hampden, and burned the _Adams_.
The eastern half of Maine was seized, and Stonington, in Connecticut,
was bombarded.

[Footnote 1: All except New England had been blockaded since 1812; and
in 1813 the coast of Chesapeake Bay had been ravaged.]

%269. Burning of Washington.%--Further down the coast a great fleet
and army from Bermuda, under General Ross and Admiral Cockburn, came up
the Chesapeake Bay, landed in Maryland, and marched to Washington. At
Bladensburg, a little hamlet near the capital, the Americans made a
feeble show of resistance, but soon fled; and about dark on an August
night, 1814, a detachment of the British reached Washington, marched to
the Capitol, fired a volley through the windows, entered, and set fire
to the building. When the fire began to burn brightly, Ross and Cockburn
led the troops to the President's house, which was sacked and burned.
Next morning the torch was applied to the Treasury building and to the
Departments of State and War. Several private houses and a printing
office were also destroyed before the British began a hasty retreat to
the Chesapeake.[1]

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