[296] Though the Bill for declaring war was passed by the House of Representatives by seventy-nine to forty-nine, the votes in the Senate in favour of war were only nineteen to seventeen (see Holmes’ ‘American Annals,’ vol. i. p. 448; and ‘American Diplomacy,’ p. 235.)
[297] Vide his letters of that date; we use his own words, as quite conclusive.
[298] Vide Monroe’s letter, Jan. 14, 1812, to Mr. Foster, Consul-General of Great Britain.
[299] This document is in the ‘United States State Papers, Foreign Relations,’ vol. iii. p. 457, and is further referred to in the ‘Declaration of the Prince Regent,’ Jan. 9, 1813. The obnoxious Decrees are renewed in full vigour, while the Duke of Bassano was affecting to wonder that the Americans had never had a copy of the Decree revoking them.
[300] Statement of Lord Castlereagh, Feb. 18, 1813.
[301] Mr. A. Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton, said that, in an American ship in which he arrived at Portsmouth harbour from the United States, a person came on board to search for British seamen. All the crew produced certificates but one, who was carried off in the boat, amidst the jeers of the American captain, who said, “There, they have taken a man who was never out of Pennsylvania in his life, and who, thinking no one could doubt it, did not provide himself with a certificate; and have left three fellows who have been only six months out of a British man-of-war, but who have been wiser in securing certificates.”
[302] See James’ ‘Naval History,’ vol. vi.
[303] Though numerous British merchant vessels were at the commencement of the war captured by privateers, the Americans suffered the most deeply before its close from the effects it produced in their commercial relations. Their foreign trade, which anterior to the rupture with Great Britain amounted to 22,000,000l. of imports and 28,000,000l. of exports, carried on in 1,300,000 tons of shipping, was almost annihilated. So disastrous were the effects of the war, that in the two short years of its existence two-thirds of the mercantile and trading classes in all the States of the Union became insolvent, and such were the suffering and public discontent in the States of Massachusetts and Connecticut that the feeling of nationality was nearly extinguished. Indeed a large portion of the people, when peace was restored, were preparing to take steps to break off from the Union, to assert their national independence, and to make terms with Great Britain (see ‘De Tocqueville’ and ‘Annual Register’ for 1814, p. 193).
[304] Alison, v. x. p. 121.
[305] The order of events was as follows: at first on the advance of the French they were victorious everywhere, especially on the historical fields of Lützen, Bautzen, and Hochkirche, and also at Würtschen; but the tide of victory turned after a brief armistice, and Dresden was Napoleon’s last success in a pitched battle. Culm, Katzbach, Gross-beeren, and Dennewitz had proved that the French were no longer invincible, and prepared for the final and crushing crisis, rendered all the more severe by the defection of two brigades of Saxon foot, twenty-two guns, and the Würtemburg cavalry, in the middle of the great battle of Leipsic, Oct. 18, 1813.—Alison, ch. xxxi.