course by declaring that Mr. Adams had appointed none but Federalists to office, and that it was not fair for one party to have all the offices, or even a majority of them. This was the beginning of the system of removals from office for political causes, which has been the bane of our Government; but it should be added, in justice to Mr. Jefferson, that he was not guilty of such wholesale political decapitation as has usually been practised by his successors. His removals were few in proportion to the whole number of officials. His first term was marked by wisdom and vigor. The domestic affairs of the nation. prospered, and the finances were managed in a masterly manner by Albert Gallatin, the great Secretary of the Treasury. Louisiana was purchased from France, and the insolence and piracies of the Barbary States of Africa punished and stopped.

In 1804, Mr. Jefferson was reelected, receiving all but 14 of the electoral votes. Burr was succeeded in the Vice-Presidency by George Clinton, and two years later was arrested and tried for a supposed attempt to separate the Western States from the Union. He was acquitted of the charge, and his innocence is now generally admitted. American commerce was much injured by the retaliatory decrees and orders in Council of the French and British Governments, under the sanction of which American ships were seized with impunity in gross violation of the laws of nations. Great Britain was not content with these outrages, but asserted a right to impress American seamen into her navy, and to stop and search American vessels for deserters from her ships of war. These searches were generally conducted in the most aggravating manner, and hundreds of American sailors, owing no allegiance to King George, were forced into the British. service. In June, 1807, the American frigate Chesapeake, on her way to the Mediterranean, was stopped off the Chesapeake Bay, by the British frigate Leopard, whose commander produced an order requiring him to search the ship for deserters. The American vessel refused to submit to the search, and was fired into by the Leopard, and, being in a helpless condition, was forced to yield with a loss of twenty-one of her crew. Four men were taken from her and sent on board the Leopard. Three of these afterwards proved to be nativeborn Americans. This outrage aroused a feeling of the most intense indignation in America, and the Federal Government at once demanded reparation at the hands of Great Britain, which was evaded for the time, but finally made in 1811.

On the 11th of November, 1807, England issued an order in

Council, forbidding neutral vessels to enter the ports of France until they had first touched at a British port and paid a duty; and the next month Napoleon replied to this, by issuing a decree from Milan, ordering the confiscation of every vessel which should submit to search by or pay any duties to the British authorities. These two piratical decrees, each of which was enforced by a powerful navy, meant simply the destruction of all neutral commerce, and that of America in particular. Mr. Jefferson recommended to Congress, in December, to lay an embargo, detaining all vessels, American or foreign, in the ports of the United States, and to order the immediate return home of all American vessels. This measure, which was a most singular expedient, was adopted, and gave rise to such intense dissatisfaction in all parts of the country, that it was repealed in February, 1809.

As Mr. Jefferson declined to be a candidate for a third term, the Democratic party supported James Madison, of Virginia, for the Presidency, and George Clinton, of New York, for the Vice-Presidency, and elected them in 1808. They were inaugurated in March, 1809. The measures of Mr. Jefferson's second term, and especially the embargo, had given rise to considerable opposition to the Democracy, and this opposition was now directed against the new administration with no little bitterness, and followed it persistently until its withdrawal from power.

Great Britain, instead of discontinuing her outrages upon American seamen and commerce, increased them every day, persistently refusing to be influenced by the protests and representations of the United States; and our Government, having at length exhausted all peaceable means of redress, was compelled to defend its rights with arms. War was declared against England on the 3d of June, 1812, and measures looking to the conquest of Canada were at once set on foot. The nation was poorly prepared for war. The embargo had almost entirely destroyed the revenue of the Government, and the finances were in a state of sad confusion; the navy consisted of only eight frigates and seven other vessels; and the army was a mere handful of inefficient recruits. Still, America possessed this advantage. Great Britain was forced to make such tremendous exertions to carry on her war with France, that she did not have much strength left to expend upon this country. This is shown by the fact that England made no effort to blockade our coast until the 20th of March, 1813, when, having sent a strong fleet to our waters, she proclaimed the blockade of the entire American coast, except the shores of New England.

Congress authorized the President to increase the regular army by 25,000 men, and to call for 50,000 volunteers. The calls were. responded to promptly in some of the States, tardily in some, and almost ignored in others, for the country was far from being united in support of the war.

Hostilities began in the Northwest. Previous to the war, the Indians of that region, instigated by British emissaries, commenced to make war upon the American settlements, under the leadership of the famous Shawnee Chief Tecumseh. General Harrison (afterwards President), the Governor of the Territory of Indiana, as soon as he learned of this, organized a considerable force of Western militia, and marched against the savages, whom he defeated with terrible loss, in a sanguinary battle at Tippecanoe, on the banks of the Wabash River, on the 7th of November, 1811. Though defeated in this battle, Tecumseh was not conquered. He passed the next six months in reorganizing his forces, and with the beginning of the summer of 1812, renewed hostilities. General Hull, then Governor of Michigan, was sent to meet him with a force of 2000 men. He had just begun his march when war was declared against England, and he was ordered to discontinue his expedition against the Indians, and invade Canada. His force was utterly inadequate to such an undertaking, but the War Department was too stupid to perceive this. He entered Canada from Detroit, was met by a superior force of British and Indians, under General Brock, and was driven back to Detroit with a loss of 1200 men. This reduced his army to 800 men, with which he could do absolutely nothing. On the 16th of August, he surrendered Detroit to the enemy, who had followed him from Canada. This placed the whole of Michigan in the hands of General Brock. An invasion of Canada. from the Niagara frontier was also undertaken by our forces during the fall of 1812. It was a most disastrous failure.

These defeats on land, however, were partly atoned for by our successes at sea. The navy had been utterly neglected by the Government at the outset of the war, and had been left to win by good service whatever encouragement it afterwards received. It achieved during the latter part of 1812 a series of brilliant victories, which placed it in the proud position it has since held. On the 19th of August, the frigate Constitution, Captain Hull, captured the British frigate Guerriere; on the 18th of October, the sloop of war Wasp, Captain Jones, captured the British brig Frolic; on the 25th of October, the frigate United States, Captain Decatur, captured the British frigate

Macedonian; and on the 29th of December, the

Bainbridge, captured the British frigate Java.

Constitution, Captain

Privateers were sent

to sea in great numbers, and, by the close of the year 1812, had captured over 300 English merchant vessels.

The Government renewed its efforts against Canada with the opening of the campaign of 1813. An army, under General Harrison, was collected near the head of Lake Erie, and styled the Army of the West; an Army of the Centre, under General Dearborn, was stationed along the Niagara frontier; and an Army of the North, under General Wade Hampton, was posted in northern New York, on the border of Lake Champlain. There were numerous engagements between these forces and the enemy, but nothing definite was accomplished during the first half year. In April, General Pike, with a force of 1700 Americans, captured York (now Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, but was himself killed by the explosion of a mine fired by the enemy. The town was not held, however, and the success of the attack was fully balanced by the terrible disaster which had befallen the Western Army, in January, at River Raisin, in which a detachment of 800 men, under General Winchester, had been defeated and the greater portion of them massacred by the Indians, who were now the open allies of the English. In May, the British made an attack on Sackett's Harbor, on Lake Ontario, but were repulsed. In the same month, an American force, under General Boyd and Colonel Miller, captured Fort George, in Canada, inflicting upon the British a loss of nearly 1000 men. Nothing definite was accomplished on the Niagara frontier, owing to the quarrels between Generals Wilkinson and Hampton, and the grand invasion of Canada, from which so much had been expected, never took place. The great events of the year, however, were the destruction of the British fleet on Lake Erie, by the squadron of Captain Oliver H. Perry, on the 10th of September, which caused the enemy to abandon the lake and with it the shores of Michigan and Ohio; and the battle of the Thames, in Canada, in which the Western Army, under General Harrison, on the 6th of October, utterly defeated a strong British column, under General Proctor, and a force of 2000 Indians, under Tecumseh, inflicting upon them a severe loss in killed and wounded-Tecumseh himself being among the former-and taking 600 prisoners, 6 pieces of cannon, and large quantities of stores.

At sea, this year, the American brig Hornet, Captain Lawrence, captured the Peacock. On the 24th of February, Captain Lawrence

was put in command of the frigate Chesapeake, which was captured by the British frigate Shannon, off Boston, on the 1st of June. Lawrence was mortally wounded in this engagement. On the 5th of September, the American brig Enterprise, Lieutenant Burrows, captured the British brig Boxer, Lieutenant Blythe. Both commanders were killed in the fight.

The campaign of 1814 was more important. The war in Europe having closed, large numbers of Wellington's veteran troops were sent over to America. They reached this country during the latter part of the year. On the 5th of July, the American army, under General Brown, defeated the British at Chippewa. On the 25th of the same month, General Brown won a second victory over the enemy