Macdonough, an officer of whom any navy in the world might well be proud, then concentrated on the stricken Confiance with his own Saratoga, greatly aided by the Eagle, which swung round so as to rake the Confiance with her fresh broadside. The Linnet now drifted off a little and so could not help the Confiance, both because the American galleys at once engaged her and because her position was bad in any case. Presently both flagships slackened fire; whereupon Macdonough took the opportunity of winding ship. His ground tackle was in perfect order on the far, or landward, side; so the Saratoga swung round quite easily. The Confiance now had both the Eagle's and the Saratoga's fresh carronade broadsides deluging her battered, cannon-armed broadside with showers of deadly grape. Her one last chance of keeping up a little longer was to wind ship herself. Her tackle had all been cut; but her master got out his last spare cables and tried to bring her round, while some of his toiling men fell dead at every haul. She began to wind round very slowly; and, when exactly at right angles to Macdonough, was raked completely, fore and aft. At the same time an ominous list to port, where her side was torn in over a hundred places, showed that she would sink quickly if her guns could not be run across to starboard. But more than half her mixed scratch crew had been already killed or wounded. The most desperate efforts of her few surviving officers could not prevent the confusion that followed the fearful raking she now received from both her superior opponents; and before her fresh broadside could be brought to bear she was forced to strike her flag. Then every American carronade and gun was turned upon Pring's undaunted little Linnet, which kept up the hopeless fight for fifteen minutes longer; so that Prevost might yet have a chance to carry out his own operations without fear of molestation from a hostile bay.
But Prevost was in no danger of molestation. He was in perfect safety. He watched the destruction of his fleet from his secure headquarters, well inland, marched and countermarched his men about, to make a show of action; and then, as the Linnet fired her last, despairing gun, he told all ranks to go to dinner.
That night he broke camp hurriedly, left all his badly wounded men behind him, and went back a great deal faster than he came. His shamed, disgusted veterans deserted in unprecedented numbers. And Macomb's astounded army found themselves the victors of an unfought field.
The American victory at Plattsburg gave the United States the absolute control of Lake Champlain; and this, reinforcing their similar control of Lake Erie, counterbalanced the British military advantages all along the Canadian frontier. The British command of the sea, the destruction of Washington, and the occupation of Maine told heavily on the other side. These three British advantages had been won while the mother country was fighting with her right hand tied behind her back; and in all the elements of warlike strength the British Empire was vastly superior to the United States. Thus there cannot be the slightest doubt that if the British had been free to continue the war they must have triumphed. But they were not free. Europe was seething with the profound unrest that made her statesmen feel the volcano heaving under their every step during the portentous year between Napoleon's abdication and return. The mighty British Navy, the veteran British Army, could not now be sent across the sea in overwhelming force. So American diplomacy eagerly seized this chance of profiting by British needs, and took such good advantage of them that the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war on Christmas Eve, left the two opponents in much the same position towards each other as before. Neither of the main reasons for which the Americans had fought their three campaigns was even mentioned in the articles.
The war had been an unmitigated curse to the motherland herself; and it brought the usual curses in its train all over the scene of action. But some positive good came out of it as well, both in Canada and in the United States.
The benefits conferred on the United States could not be given in apter words than those used by Gallatin, who, as the finance minister during four presidential terms, saw quite enough of the seamy side to sober his opinions, and who, as a prominent member of the war party, shared the disappointed hopes of his colleagues about the conquest of Canada. His opinion is, of course, that of a partisan. But it contains much truth, for all that:
The war has been productive of evil and of good; but
I think the good preponderates. It has laid the
foundations of permanent taxes and military
establishments, which the Republicans [as the
anti-Federalist Democrats were then called] had deemed
unfavorable to the happiness and free institutions of
the country. Under our former system we were becoming
too selfish, too much attached exclusively to the
acquisition of wealth, above all, too much confined
in our political feelings to local and state objects.
The war has renewed the national feelings and character
which the Revolution had given, and which were daily
lessening. The people are now more American. They feel
and act more as a nation. And I hope that the permanency
of the Union is thereby better secured.
Gallatin did not, of course, foresee that it would take a third conflict to finish what the Revolution had begun. But this sequel only strengthens his argument. For that Union which was born in the throes of the Revolution had to pass through its tumultuous youth in '1812' before reaching full manhood by means of the Civil War.
The benefits conferred on Canada were equally permanent and even greater. How Gallatin would have rejoiced to see in the United States any approach to such a financial triumph as that which was won by the Army Bills in Canada! No public measure was ever more successful at the time or more full of promise for the future. But mightier problems than even those of national finance were brought nearer to their desirable solution by this propitious war. It made Ontario what Quebec had long since been—historic ground; thus bringing the older and newer provinces together with one exalting touch. It was also the last, as well as the most convincing, defeat of the three American invasions of Canada. The first had been led by Sir William Phips in 1690. This was long before the Revolution. The American Colonies were then still British and Canada still French. But the invasion itself was distinctively American, in men, ships, money, and design. It was undertaken without the consent or knowledge of the home authorities; and its success would probably have destroyed all chance of there being any British Canada to-day. The second American invasion had been that of Montgomery and Arnold in 1775, during the Revolution, when the very diverse elements of a new Canadian life first began to defend their common heritage against a common foe. The third invasion—the War of 1812—united all these elements once more, just when Canada stood most in need of mutual confidence between them. So there could not have been a better bond of union than the blood then shed so willingly by her different races in a single righteous cause.