LIII. 1812. Upper Canada, were baffled in their immediate CHAP. views; but, having passed the river Detroit, and ravaged the neighboring country, they took up a defensive position. Sir George Provost, the governor, had made no preparation to repel the invasion; and major-general Brock, who had his station near the menaced frontier, was so ill provided with means of defence, that he could only assemble 330 regulars, 400 militia, and about 600 Indians, for immediate operations: with these forces, however, he resolved to attack the hostile station, and quickly profited by the panic which he produced. Hull felt so much alarm at the defection of the barbarian chiefs, who had given promise of neutrality, that he proposed a negotiation; and, at length, surrendered his whole force, amounting to 2300 men, with 33 pieces of artillery. This inauspicious commencement of the war did not discourage the Americans, whose animosity and resentment stimulated them to persevere in the contest which they had provoked: on the thirteenth of October, a second army, repeating the attempt on Canada, took Queen's town; but disappointment and calamity soon followed this partial success: a small British force marched to chastise the intruders, who, being thrown into confusion by a spirited attack, were compelled to surrender, after a considerable loss in killed and wounded: general Brock fell on the field of honor, as he was gallantly cheering his men. The Americans consoled themselves for these disasters by their success at sea; a success, chiefly due to the great superiority of their frigates in size, weight of metal, and number of men; though it is not to be denied, that they were manoeuvred with such skill, as would have done honor to any officers in the British navy. The first action was fought on the twentieth of August, between the Guerrière, captain Dacres; and the Constitution, captain Hull: the former was rated at thirty-eight guns, but had forty-nine mounted; her gun-deck battery consisting of eighteen-pounders, with thirty-two pounder ENG. VI. B LIII. 1812. CHAP. carronades on her quarter deck; and her complement being 300 men: the Constitution was rated at forty-four guns, but mounted fifty-six; her guns being twenty-four pounders, and her complement of men 450. The American frigate, as well as some others, had been originally intended for a lineof-battle ship; and her dimensions were equal to a British seventy-four: besides, the Guerrière had been long at sea, and was not in a good fighting condition: soon after the commencement of the action, she felt the effect of the enemy's superior weight of metal; and, having lost her mizen-mast, became quite unmanageable: before she struck, she was in a sinking condition; and was set on fire and burnt by the enemy. Ministers were much censured for want of foresight, in not having been prepared with ships of sufficient size to cope with their antagonists; since it was well known what kind of frigates the Americans had built they forgot, too, that war, though it ought to be commenced only when every method to avoid it has been tried in vain, should, when begun, be carried on with promptitude, activity, and vigor; especially against such a people as the Americans. The complaints of the British nation, respecting the mode in which this was conducted, were augmented, when the Macedonian, another ship of the same class as the Guerrière, was captured by the United States frigate, built also with the scantling of a seventy-four gun ship, mounting thirty long twenty-four pounders on her main-deck, and twentytwo forty-two pounder carronades on her quarterdeck and forecastle, with howitzer guns in her tops, and her complement consisting of 478 picked men. Commodore Decatur, wishing to reap the full advantage of his heavier metal, skilfully manoeuvred, so as to avoid coming to close quarters; and when captain Carden, after an hour, brought his opponent to close action, he felt still more the superiority of his force having maintained an obstinate combat for two hours and a half, his rigging being cut to pieces, his mizen-mast shot away, several shots received between wind and water, with many guns LIII. 1812. and a large portion of his crew disabled, he was ob- CHAP. liged to strike his flag; and the prize was carried, amidst unbounded exultation, into an American port. Similar disasters attended our naval armaments on the lakes; but neither ministers nor people expected a long continuance of this war; since it was well known, that in the northern states of the union, there was a very large and powerful party averse to it, as prejudicial to their interests; though the southern states, being less connected with, or dependent on English commerce, supported Mr. Jefferson's policy. Proposals, apparently conciliatory, were made by both parties, without producing even a suspension of hostilities; while no apology was made by the American government for its very reprehensible practice of granting certificates of citizenship to British seamen; nor any allowance for the embarrassment in which our ministry had been placed, through the violence of Bonaparte's decrees, and the necessity of retaliation: it appeared, from a declaration of the regent, that, as a preliminary to any treaty, the president demanded us to renounce, for ever, that right of search for British seamen, which could not fairly be disputed or invalidated; and this, on his sole assurance, that a law should be enacted to prevent such seamen from entering the American service in future. An exclusive reliance, however, on a foreign state, for the preservation of so vital an interest, was declared to involve a greater degree of confidence than could reasonably be expected; and the proposal was rejected, together with a claim of indemnity for the arbitrary detention or condemnation of American vessels. A second application met with a similar refusal; and, in answer to three distinct charges of aggression, it was stated, that the affair of the Chesapeak frigate, which was fired into by a British officer for refusing to submit to a search, was very improperly brought forward, be cause due reparation had been offered and accepted; -that a pretended mission of Mr. Henry, to effect a disjunction of the political league which united the LIII. 1812. CHAP. American states, had neither origin nor support in the British government; and, that the assertion was equally untrue, which imputed to that government any instigation of the savages to hostilities. These allegations, however, said the prince, are not the real causes of the present contest; which will rather be found in that spirit of partiality, which prompts the American government to assist the aggressive tyranny of France, and inflame its people against the defensive measures of Great Britain. He then noticed the arbitrary conduct of France toward the United States; and their ready, abject submission to every act of violence and injustice done by that pretended friend: from their community of origin and interest with Great Britain, and from their professed principles of freedom and independence, they were the last power in which he could have expected to find a willing instrument and an abettor of French tyranny. The disposition of the American government was strongly shown, in the nomination of Mr. Joel Barlow, the inveterate enemy of Great Britain, and admirer of her antagonist, as minister plenipotentiary to the court of France and so eager was this gentleman in the prosecution of his designs, that, anticipating the certainty of Bonaparte's success, and the ruin of Great Britain, he followed that invader even into Russia, that he might secure his favor, and profit by his conquests. The step however was fatal to himself; for, overcome by the inclemency of the weather, and the fatigues of travelling, he died at Zarnavica, an obscure village in Poland, without having had any opportunity to effect the object of his mission. We now come to the commencement of the last grand act in Bonaparte's career, his Russian and Rus- expedition. War between France sia. An account of this gigantic contest is not compatible with the limits of our work: its origin has been already alluded to, in the indignation with which Alexander viewed the sacrifice of his commerce to the continental system; and in the great game which Napoleon was playing for LIII. 1812. universal empire: its progress must be briefly CHAP. detailed, so far as it tended to influence the affairs of the continent, in which our country had, for many years, taken a leading part. Its first effect was a renewal of amity and alliance between Great Britain, Russia, and Sweden; when the good offices of the former power were exerted in promoting a peace between the courts of St. Petersburg and Constantinople, by which a very considerable number of Russian troops were liberated for the defence of their native land. Early in the spring of this year, large bodies of French soldiers were continually marching through Germany: these, being joined by the contingents of the Rhenish confederation, proceeded toward the Vistula, after leaving garrisons in the principal cities and fortresses of Prussia; with which power, as well as with Austria, a treaty of alliance was concluded, engaging each to assist the French emperor with numerous forces. To meet this impending storm, the Russian monarch put his armies in motion, and by an imperial ukase of the twenty-third of March ordered a levy of two men in 500 throughout his extensive dominions. Professions of peace, as usual, preceded hostilities; Napoleon making offers both to England and to Russia : the former were despised; and Alexander, in reply, demanded that the French troops should evacuate East Prussia. On the eighth of May, Bonaparte, accompanied by his august consort, set out from Paris, and proceeded, by way of Mentz, Wurtzburg, and Freyburg, to Dresden; where, after having received the homage of crowned heads throughout his journey, he was met by the emperor and empress of Austria, with the kings of Saxony and Prussia; while monarchs of inferior rank, princes, and archdukes, crowded the ante-chamber, and made obeisance to this mighty conqueror: it seemed as if fortune offered the incense of this last pageant to his imperial pride, in order to make her desertion of him more severely felt. On the twenty-eighth of May, the count de Narbonne, who |