CHAPTER XVI
WHY WE FOUGHT IN 1812
A STIRRING TALE OF THE OUTRAGES PERPETRATED ON AMERICAN CITIZENS BY THE PRESS-GANGS OF THE BRITISH NAVY—HORRORS OF LIFE ON SHIPS WHERE THE OFFICERS FOUND PLEASURE IN THE USE OF THE CAT—DOOMED TO SLAVERY FOR LIFE—IMPRESSED FROM THE BALTIMORE—A BRITISH SEAMAN’S JOKE AND ITS GHASTLY RESULT—THE BRITISH ADMIRALTY’S WAY OF DEALING WITH DELIBERATE MURDER IN AMERICAN WATERS—ASSAULT OF THE LEOPARD ON THE CHESAPEAKE TO COMPEL AMERICAN SEAMEN TO RETURN TO THE SLAVERY THEY HAD ESCAPED—BUILDING HARBOR-DEFENCE BOATS TO PROTECT AMERICAN SEAMEN FROM OUTRAGE ON THE HIGH SEAS—OTHER GOOD REASONS FOR GOING TO WAR.
There were many causes operating through weary years to force the American nation to declare war against the British in 1812, which the reader will recall readily, of course. Great Britain retained the frontier posts which she had agreed to surrender when the war of the Revolution came to an end. She used these posts as headquarters for Indian tribes, whose friendship she cultivated that she might use them to the injury of the United States. She even incited them to attack the American pioneers, and furnished them with guns and scalping knives when night assaults on peaceful settlers were to be made. Although all Europe was submerged in a turmoil of blood, she turned aside from the great interests there to foment discord between the States of the American Union, seeking thereby to disrupt the nation in the hope that a part—the New England part, at that—would return to the colonial relationship. Remembering the prodigious growth of American shipping and the consequent complaints of her own shipowners, she used every means to harass American commerce. To detail all of the evils she heaped upon the decks of American ships is unnecessary, but the reader will remember that a time came when she ordered that every American ship carrying cargo to any part of Europe must call first at a port in England, land the cargo, pay duty on it, and then carry it away again, subject to such regulations as seemed most beneficial to her.
As the Edinburgh Review for November, 1812, said, “the spirit of animosity and unconciliating contempt pervaded the whole proceedings of the government” toward the Americans. And although “they are descended from our loins—they speak our language—they have adopted our laws—they retain our usages and manners—they read our books—they have copied our freedom—they rival our courage; yet they are less popular and less esteemed among us than the base and bigoted Portuguese, or the ferocious and ignorant Russians.”
That the retention of the frontier posts, the inciting of the Indians to night attacks on the frontiersmen, and the interferences with American oversea trade were separately sufficient causes of war and, combined, more than sufficient, will not now be seriously disputed, if the advocate of peace will stop to consider what ought to be done were any one of these uncalled-for aggressions attempted now. And yet so great was the American antipathy to another war, so great was the American desire to hold a neutral position as to the wars of Europe, that neither the one nor the other nor all together were sufficient to nerve them to strike the blow. Still another and a stronger incentive was needed, if war was to be declared—a grievance that would appeal to the heart of the whole people. And not only was this incentive found; it was continually present and crying aloud for vengeance.
“The Press-gang impressing a Young Waterman on his Marriage Day.”
From an English engraving, illustrating an old song.
To fully appreciate this, the chief cause of the War of 1812 between the United States and England, one must first know well how the crews of the British naval ships of that day were recruited and what manner of life these crews led when in actual service. As to the manner of recruiting, the facts are, no doubt, well known to almost every reader. Gangs of men, under the lead of petty officers, and commonly piloted by a crimp, were sent ashore in home ports by the captain who found his ship short-handed. These gangs went to the resorts of seamen in the port where the ship happened to lie, and there took by force every English-speaking sailor they could find and carried him on board the warship. Failing to find a resource in the sailors’ boarding-houses, they knocked down any able-bodied man encountered in the street, and he was then carried instantly to the ship. Failing in getting enough men in this fashion—as, for instance, when the ship was in a foreign port or on the high seas—it was the custom, the every-day custom, to send the press-gang, on board any ship where it was supposed that English-speaking sailors might be found, and there take and carry off all such sailors.
The life that the crews so recruited led cannot, of course, be described here in full detail. The reader will readily imagine that the officers who snatched a man away from his home without even the poor privilege of telling his wife and children of his fate would not show any great care for the feelings or comfort of the man when on board the ship. But any picture of the life there which an American, at the end of the nineteenth century, might base on the mere fact that sailors were kidnapped, would be wholly inadequate, for the reason that no American of these days, unacquainted with the facts, could imagine such a degraded state of slavery. That the crews were ill-fed; that they were worked to the limit of their endurance; that the pay was as nothing (it is on record that one kidnapped man received £14 2s. 6d. for serving two and a half years); that the kidnapped men were not allowed to go ashore and were not allowed to write letters to their families where any effort was likely to be made for their release—all these conditions are, or were, a matter of course. It was in the matter of preserving what the officers called discipline—in keeping these unfortunate slaves in subjugation—that the real brutality of the British naval officers appeared. For the officers, who depended on clubs and manacles to recruit their crews, made no appeal to them save through their fears—used nothing to enforce an order but the cat-o’-ninetails. One undenied description of the flogging of a man on a British man-o’-war—a man-o’-war well known later on in the annals of the American navy—shall serve as an illustration of the ordinary punishments inflicted there.