War!
There were many in that crowd who remembered 1783; there stood the man who, in his boyhood's days, had climbed the flagpole and torn down the Union Jack of England, and in its place had hoisted the Star Spangled Banner.
Many whose hair was now turning gray had shouldered the musket and had marched with Washington from victory to victory.
The war had ended when the British evacuated the city, but America was not free and independent.
England held the supremacy of the seas.
English vessels entered American ports, and men were impressed as seamen on the technical ground that they had never abjured allegiance.
American vessels were boarded on the high seas, and some of the best men taken away and forced to serve under the English flag.
There is a limit to forbearance, and the young nation, whose infancy had scarcely been passed, resolved that it would be better to die than endure such insults.
War was declared.
It looked like madness.