end by capturing the British Penguin off the coast of Brazil.

But these sea-battles, as well as the battle of New Orleans itself, had been fought under flags which were no longer hostile. Already a treaty of peace had been concluded. In the summer of 1814 American commissioners were sent to Ghent, in Belgium, and were there met by the ambas sadors of Great Britain. The agents of the United States were John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan Russell and Albert Gallatin. The British commissioners were Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn and William Adams. On the 24th of December the terms of reconciliation and settlement were agreed to and signed. In both countries the news was received with profound satisfaction. The causes of the war had been from the first factitious and without definition. On the 18th of February, 1815, the treaty was ratified by the Senate of the United States and peace was publicly proclaimed.

It could not be said that either nation was the victor. Both had fought and suffered to little purpose. These facts of the irrationality of the war came out strongly in the terms of pacification. Indeed, there never was a more absurd treaty than that of Ghent. Its only significance was that Great Britain and the United States, having been at war, agreed to be at peace. Not a single one of the distinctive issues to decide which the war had been undertaken was settled or even mentioned in the compact with which it was ended. Of the impressment of American seamen not a word was said. The wrongs done to the commerce of the United States were not even referred to. The rights of neutral nations were left as undetermined as before. "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," which had been the battle-cry of the American navy, no mention was made. The whole treaty was circumlocutory and inconsequential,

Of

The principal articles were devoted to the settlement of unimportant boundaries and the possession of some petty islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy!

There is little doubt, however, that at the time of the treaty of Ghent Great Britain gave private assurance to the United States that impressment on the high seas and the other wrongs complained of by the Americans should be practiced against them no more. Thus much at least was gained. For the space of more than seventy-five years vessels bearing the flag of the United States have been exempt from such insults as led to the War of 1812. Another advantage gained by America was the recognition of her naval strength and prowess. It was no longer doubtful that the American sailors were the equals of any in the world. Their valor and patriotism had challenged the admiration of all nations. It was no small triumph for the republic that her flag should henceforth be honored on all seas and oceans.

The troubles of the American navy with the Algerine pirates of the Mediterranean have more than once been mentioned on former pages. The war between the United States and Great Britain gave opportunity to the Moorish sea-robbers to renew their depredations. At the close of the conflict the government of the United States made haste to settle the score with the African pirates. Com. modore Decatur was ordered to proceed to the Mediterranean and to chastise them into final submission. He had the good fortune, on the 17th of June, to fall in with the principal frigate of the Algerine squadron, and this ship, after a severe fight, was compelled to surrender. Two days afterwards he captured another frigate. In a short time he sailed boldly into the Bay of Algiers and was able to dictate to the frightened Dey an advantageous and honorable treaty. The Moorish Emperor agreed to release his Ameri

can prisoners without ransom, to relinquish all claims to tribute and to give a pledge that his ships should trouble American merchantmen no more. Decatur followed up the good work by sailing against Tunis and Tripoli, both of which powers he compelled to give pledges of good conduct and to pay large sums in the way of indemnity for former depredations.

We thus reach the close of the epoch of our second war with the mother country. Before the end of Madison's administration the Territory of Indiana was organized and admitted into the Union. The new commonwealth was received by act of Congress on the 11th of December, 1816. About the same time was founded the Colonization Society of the United States, having for its object the establishment of a refuge for free persons of color. Many distinguished American citizens became members of the association and sought to promote its interests. Liberia, on the western coast of Africa, was selected as the seat of a proposed colony to be founded by the freemen of the African race emigrating from America. A sufficient number of these went abroad to establish a flourishing negro state; but the enterprise has never answered to the expectations and hopes of its promoters. The capital of Liberia was named Monrovia, in honor of James Monroe, who in the fall of 1816 was chosen as Madison's successor in the Presidency. For Vice-President the choice fell on Daniel D. Tompkins, of New York.

The one great benefit of the War of 1812, so far as our country was concerned, was that the conflict conduced greatly to the independence of the United States. The American nation became more conscious of its own existence, more self-sufficient than ever before. The reader of general history will have readily perceived that the war was really a side issue of the greater struggle going on in Europe.

On the part of Great Britain the conflict was conducted but feebly-as though she knew herself to be in the wrong. As soon as a fair opportunity was presented she receded from a contest in which she had engaged in only a half-hearted and irresolute way and of which she had good cause to be ashamed. At the close of the conflict the historian comes to what may be called the Middle Ages of the United States -an epoch in which the tides of population rolled through the notches of the Alleghanies into the Mississippi Valley, tending to a powerful physical civilization, in which, however, the institution of African slavery began to throw its black and portentous shadow athwart the historical landscape.

CHAPTER XXII.

AFTER the War of 1812 the United States entered a period of an unheroic character. Tragedy disappeared from our annals. Nor could it be truthfully said that great deeds of peace took the place of the excitement and vicissitudes of the battle-field. Nevertheless, the era upon which we are here to enter will be found replete with interest. A new and more humane spirit may be discovered among the people. The nineteenth century, towards the close of its first quarter and the beginning of the second, yielded itself somewhat to a more benign genius than that which had dominated the eighteenth to its close. In the present chapter we are to follow the annals of our country from the accession of James Monroe to the Presidency to the epoch of the war with Mexico.

The new President was a Virginian by birth and education, being the fourth and last of the so-called “Virginia Dynasty." All the chief magistrates thus far, with the exception of the elder Adams, had been chosen from the Old Dominion. Monroe was born on the 28th of April, 1758. He was educated at William and Mary College, from which institution he went out in 1776 to become a soldier of the Revolution. He was a young man of valor and great abilities. In the battle of Trenton he received a British ball in his shoulder. He served under Lord Stirling in the severe campaigns of 1777-78, being in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. After the Revolution he became a student of law with Thomas Jefferson, at that time