Morris, and Stewart were all in his squadron, but he created in the navy the professional spirit or idea, which was the main quality that distinguished it from the army in the war with Great Britain.

At the outbreak of the war there were 18 vessels in the navy, ranging from 44-gun frigates to 12-gun brigs. There were also 176 gunboats, on which a large sum of money had been expended, but which were of no use whatever. The annual abstracts of the British navy show that it possessed at this time 230 ships-of-the-line, of from 60 to 120 guns each, and 600 frigates and smaller vessels. From the English standpoint, no vessel of the American fleet was large enough to take her place in the line of battle, or was regarded as being really a combatant.

Immediately after the declaration of war, the frigates in commission in the home ports, together with two of the sloops, put to sea as a squadron under Commodore John Rodgers. They fell in with the English frigate "Belvidera," but she got away from them; and after an ineffectual cruise across the Atlantic, they returned home, without meeting anything of

consequence.

Three weeks later, the "Constitution," under Captain Hull, sailed from Annapolis. Soon after leaving the Chesapeake she came upon a British squadron of one sixty-four and four frigates, and then ensued the famous three days' chase, in the course of which, by a marvel of good seamanship and good discipline, the American frigate escaped. After a short respite

* [From the Amer. Mag., 1834, vol. i. 84, where it is said that the cut was made "on a piece of wood taken from one of her live-oak knees in 1833." There is in Ibid. i. 86, a view of the ship at her moorings at the Charlestown Navy Yard. Cf. Mem. Hist. Boston, iii. 332, 334. A posthumous publication of Cooper on "Oid Ironsides" appeared in Putnam's Mag., new series, May and June, 1853. — ED.]

in Boston, Hull set out again, and on the 19th of August he fought and captured the "Guerrière," Captain Dacres, in an engagement lasting about an hour. The "Constitution" being armed with 24-pounders instead of 18's, threw at a broadside a weight of shot half as large again as that of the "Guerrière," and her crew was numerically superior in a still greater

degree. Nevertheless, the immensely greater disproportion in the casualties which the "Constitution" inflicted and received, and the short time which she took to do the work, cannot be explained by the difference in force alone; for the "Guerrière" had five times as many killed and wounded as her opponent, and at the close of the engagement she was a dismasted wreck, while the "Constitution" had suffered no injury of importance. The essential point of difference lay in the practical training and skill of the crews in gunnery. The English often appeared to fire without pointing their guns; the Americans always fired to hit. This was seen in all the subsequent victories.

In the next action, in Octo

ber, the sloop "Wasp," Captain Jacob Jones, captured the English brig "Frolic," of approximately the same force. The relative loss of English and Americans was again five to one. Both vessels were soon after taken by a seventy-four. Later in the same month, another frigate action took place, the "United States," under Decatur, capturing the "Macedonian." The advantage of the Americans in men was about the same as in the first action, while in guns it was greater. The American casualties were 13, the English 104. This difference was not due to the fact that the American guns were 24's and 42's instead of 18's and 32's, or that the Americans. had three more of them in a broadside; it was really due to the way in which the guns on both sides were handled.

* [From the Nat. Portrait Gallery (1839). Engraved by G. Parker, after a painting by J. W. Jarvis. Stuart's picture is at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and has been engraved by Edwin, and by Sartain, in John Frost's Commodores, and in Harris's Bainbridge. Cf. the engraving in the Aralectic Mag., vol. ii., and the full-length by Chapell in Dawson, ii. 183. The medal given to him by Congress to commemorate this capture (June 29, 1812) of the "Java" by the "Constitution " gives his likeness in profile. It is figured by Lossing, p. 463, and by Loubat, no. 29. — ED.]

Shortly after this capture, a cruise in the Pacific was projected for a squadron to be composed of the "Constitution," "Essex," and "Hornet." The "Essex" failed to meet the other vessels at the rendezvous off the coast of Brazil, and went on the Pacific cruise alone. The "Constitution," now commanded by Bainbridge, met the frigate "Java,” near Brazil, on the 29th of December. The antagonists were more nearly matched than in the previous frigate actions, but the fight, lasting a little over an hour, resulted in the total defeat and surrender of the "Java," with a loss of 124

to the Americans' 34. The "Java" was a wreck, and could not be taken into port, and Bainbridge returned home. Two months later, February 24, 1813, the "Hornet," commanded by Lawrence, met the "Peacock off the Demerara, and reduced her in fifteen minutes to a sinking condition, while the "Hornet's" hull was hardly scratched. The English sloop sank so quickly that she carried down part of her own crew and three of the "Hornet's" who were trying to save them. The casualties, apart from those drowned, were five in the "Hornet" and thirty-eight in the "Pea

* [From an engraving in the Analectic Mag. (Sept., 1814), vol. iv., made by Edwin after a picture by Wood. There is a portrait in Independence Hall. Cf. Lossing, 721, who copies the picture by J. Wood, engraved by Prud'homme in Porter's Journal of a Cruise, where there are engravings after drawings made by Porter, one showing his fleet at Madison Island, and the other his final fight in the "Essex," both of which are copied by Lossing. ED.]

cock." This action shows even more than the others that the difference between the contestants was not so much in numerical force as in skill in handling weapons.

The moral effect in England of these defeats was very great. The long succession of victories over the French, Spaniards, Dutch, and Danes had led the English to regard their navy as invincible, and to place in it unlimited confidence. The five actions caused a shock, which was all the more severe from the feeling of contempt with which naval men in England had taught their countrymen to regard the American ships of war. The prevailing notions about United States frigates evidently required readjustment, and the admiralty and the navy were bitterly attacked for having underrated their enemies.

With the exception of two isolated attempts at invasion, the first on the Chesapeake and the second at New Orleans, the war on land was almost wholly on the northern frontier. It had been the vague intention of the leaders of the war party in Congress to make the conquest of Canada the main feature of the land campaigns. Little had been done, however, by the War Department to prepare for the movement. Indeed, the War Department did not have at its command either the men or the machinery to draw up a strategic plan or to put it into successful operation. Eustis, the Secretary, had formerly been a surgeon in the army, and had but slight knowledge of military affairs. Few of the general officers had seen any military service since the Revolution. The troops were mostly raw recruits. Among the regimental officers were some men of decided military talent, but until the latter part of the war their efforts were neutralized by incompetent commanders. The invasion of Canada presented a complex problem which should have been seriously and deliberately worked out. Apart from the intrinsic difficulty of invasion, the facility of communication between different points in the enemy's country, the remoteness and inaccessibility of the northern frontier, the unfriendliness of the Indians, and the superiority of the Canadians on the lakes, created obstacles which could only be overcome by an efficient organization in the government, and a capable strategist in the field. In the absence of both, the first campaign of the summer of 1812 was a disastrous failure.

The events of the campaign may be briefly told. Governor William Hull of Michigan Territory, one of the recently appointed brigadiergenerals, was ordered to advance into Canada. His point of departure was Detroit, then a small frontier settlement, 200 miles by land from the [NOTE. The map on the opposite page is reduced from a plate in Bouchette's British Dominions in No. Amer. (London, 1832). Cf. the map in Lieut. Francis Hall's Travels in Canada and the United States in 1816-17 (London, 1819, 2d ed.); and the "Straits of Niagara, from a map by Mr. Darby," in An Excursion through the United States and Canada, 1822–23, by an English gentleman [William Newnham Blane] (London, 1824). There is also a map in John Melish's Travels (Philad., 1814), vol. ii. Cf. those in Wilkinson's Memoirs, Atlas, no. 15; Lossing, 382; Gay, Pop. Hist., iv. 191; Cullum's Campaigns of the War of 1812-15; James's Mil. Occurrences (London, 1818); and Gen. Van Rensselaer's Affair of Queenstown (N. Y., 1836).-ED.]