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 leyalty, 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 sca 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 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.

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. Oristry; but of a Whig Cabinet, headed by Mr. on the other hand-the boldest course of all Fox,-a ‚—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 Decrec, 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 Couneil 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 such 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 ports-might 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.

of public indignation was raised; no authori- to sea, off Cape Henry, and in a few hours

came up with her. On being hailed by the Leopard, and receiving an intimation that the Captain of that ship desired to send a message on board the Chesapeake, the commander of the latter vessel, Commodore Barron, hove to;

tative document emanated from the government indicating, even indirectly and in the mildest terms, their sense of the outrage which had been committed by the oppressor and trampler of Europe. Not a word even of expostulation was breathed by the great North whereupon a letter was sent by Captain HumAmerican republic-independent as it was of phries, covering an order from Admiral Napoleon's iron-handed despotism, and deeply Berkeley, in which the men known to have interested in British commerce; until the arm been received into the American frigate, and of French violence fell heavily on the ships alleged to be deserters from the Melampus, of its own citizens; and, even then,—although were designated by name and claimed. Comconfiscation followed on confiscation, and mil-pliance with the order was refused by Comlions of francs accruing from the sequestration modore Barron, who replied by letter to of American property enriched the French Captain Humphries, denying that he had the treasury,―the tone adopted by the President men, intimating his unwillingness to permit of the United States towards the French government, though petulant enough, was gentle and plaintive and supplicatory, compared with the strong and angry language frequently addressed from Washington to ministers and plenipotentiaries of Great Britain.

the search, and adding that his crew could not be mustered for examination by any other officers than his own. Captain Humphries, on receiving this reply, fired a broadside into the Chesapeake, to which the latter vessel returned a few shots, in a confused manner; the Leopard then repeating her fire, the American frigate struck her colors. A boat was then put off from the Leopard; and the men were discovered and removed. In this affair the Chesapeake had three men killed and eighteen wounded, amongst the latter of whom was Commodore Barron; besides which the damage done to her hull and masts was considerable. The captured deserters were taken to Halifax and tried; and one of them, being found guilty of piracy and mutiny, was hanged. It is a circumstance worthy of notice,—as evincing on the part of the U. S. navy at the time a spirit gallant and resolute enough, though too irascible, that Commodore Barron was censured and suspended soon afterwards by a naval court, for not preparing his vessel more fully for action, when there was sufficient time to do so, and thus incapacitat

As it was known that several British seamen had deserted from different ships and vessels of H. M. navy, whilst lying at anchor in Hampton Roads, Va., and that, after the whole body of the deserters had openly paraded the streets of Norfolk, under the American flag, and protected by the Magistrates of the town, four of them, at least, had been received on board the U. S. frigate Chesa peake, Admiral Berkeley, then in command of the North American station, issued instruc-ing himself from making more than the slight tions for their requisition and removal,-the and very ineffective resistance which he offered deserters having been previously demanded, but without effect, by the British Consul at specially unfortunate at such a juncture; but Norfolk, as well as by the Captains of the the hasty proceeding of the President of the ships from which they had deserted. About United States served to make matters vastly one month after the issuing of these instruc- worse. On the 2nd July following, he set tions,afterwards disavowed by the British forth precipitately an angry proclamation, in Government, as an improper extension of the which, after reciting the transaction, in lanright of search to armed vessels,-Captain guage calculated to inflame the public mind in Humphries, of H. M. ship Leopard, 74 guns, a very high degree, he peremptorily "required on the 22nd June, followed the Chesapeake all armed vessels bearing commissions under

This collision between the two vessels was

the Government of Great Britain, then within chant service, about the time of the war, there

the harbors or waters of the United States, immediately and without any delay to depart from the same, and interdicted the entrance of all the said harbors and waters to the said armed vessels, and to all others bearing commissions under the authority of the British Government." This, in its bearing, was a hostile measure; for, at the same time that this interdiction of British vessels was proclaimed, the fleets of France had free access to the ports from which their enemies were thus imperiously excluded. And this step was taken, before the President knew in what light the British Government would view the act of its officer. The proclamation was, to a considerable extent, a retaliation of the violence complained of, for, by the sudden stoppage of supplies, it caused no small inconvenience and privation to many of H. M. vessels at that time in the harbours of the United States; whilst at the very moment when this We can readily understand that American method of self-redress was put in execution, a seamen, whether native or naturalized—landemand for satisfaction and reparation had guage, garb, appearance, and other characterbeen despatched to the British Government. istic peculiarities being the same in both cases, That Government, before any suit for satisfac--may have been now and then mistaken for tion had reached it, disavowed the act on the British seamen, and, as such, 'impressed ground that "the right of search, when applied to vessels of war, extended only to a requisition, but could not be carried into effect by actual force." Captain Humphries was recalled and Admiral Berkeley suffered the severe disgrace of being superseded. In this frank and honorable spirit did the British Government, before one word of complaint or expostulation had been borne across the Atlantic,-promptly and spontaneously testify their concern at the mistaken proceedings of their officer, and their cordial desire to make reparation. It will be apparent, we think, to every one that their treatment of the affair exhibits, in a very strong light, the President's proclamation as a measure premature and unjustifiable.

were between thirty and fifty thousand of our seamen employed, many of them deserters, and liable to be reclaimed as such; and, as to the rest, their impressment was just as lawful from a merchant vessel of the United States as an English vessel; for surely their having sought the service of the United States,— probably for the very purpose of evading that of their own country in the hour of peril-did not absolve them from their allegiance, nor render nugatory the established law of nations, that "every State has a right to the services of its subjects, and especially in time of war." On the trial of the men taken from the Chesapeake, it was shown that three of them were unquestionably American citizens, but that they had entered the service of Great Britain voluntarily: the fourth, who was convicted of piracy and mutiny, and for these crimes hanged, was a native British subject.

into the service of Great Britain; but there is positively no proof, either that the impressment was made with wilful disregard of ascertained origin, or that the mistake

pendence of the country was achieved. It was enough to protect them while they remain within our territories. Within these we had a right to make regulations. But we had no right to make regulations on the ocean, which would conflict with the pretensions of all civilized nations, who claimed the allegiance of their native born subjects either by the divine right of the governors, or by implied compact. He should not inquire whether these claims were compatible with the rights of man. It was sufficient that they grew civilized kingdoms, which we had no right to out of the established usages and principles of controvert out of our own limits. He would therefore not protect any other than natural American citizens on the ocean. We did not deny the right of England to search for property; she went further, and claimed the privilege of searching for her seamen. The similarity of our manners and language occasioned her to abuse the privilege in some cases by the impressment of our seamen. This was not an abuse of principle but of honor. And before we go to war with her for impressment he would make her this offer: he would agree not to let any man enter our merchant vessels but a natural citizen of these Unit

* American Weekly Register, 28th Sept., 1811. Extract from Mr. Sheffey's speech in the House of Representatives, on the bill to raise an additional military force-January, 3, 1812 :"He protested against waging a war for the protection of any other than native born American seamen, or those who were citizens when the inde-ed States."