XXV. CHAPTER tect all beneath it? Were we to be reconciled to this man-stealing from our ships because the men stolen were 1812. not citizens? From the very fact of having placed themselves under our protection, were they not entitled to it? Whatever side-motives, and they were many and powerful-hope of plunder by privateering; hope of military distinction; hope of enrichment by government contracts; hope of an interior market for agricultural produce; hope of protection to domestic manufactures; hope of riding into office on the crest of a wave of blood; ha tred of England, and partiality for France: however such motives might have mainly tended to precipitate the war, still it was a war for the right of personal freedom-the freedom, suppose, of Britons, and other foreigners, as well as of Americans, from the domineering insolence of British press-gangs-an idea congenial to every manly soul, and giving to the contest a strong hold on the hearts of the masses; in fact, a just title to the character of a democratic war, in the best sense of that very ambiguous epithet, and even to be called a second war of independence, as its advocates delighted to describe it. Looked at from this stand, as it was at the time, still is, and always will be by numbers-since few are capable of view. ing any thing in more lights than one-though the making impressment the turning-point of the war was, in fact, an accident and an after-thought, yet, since that did become the point, this war, with all its blunders and disasters, will still present itself to many minds as a necessary and noble struggle against insolence and oppression; not the less noble because rashly undertaken on behalf of the poor, the helpless, and the stranger; and, perhaps, like other great efforts on the side of humanity, not the less effectual, though, at the moment, it seemed to fail wholly of its object. So different were the views PERSONS AND PROPERTY. 353 XXV. of this war, taken with equal honesty, and, we may say, CHAPTER with equal intelligence, by the more speculative of its ultra opponents and its ultra supporters. To these it 1812. seemed a war on behalf of despotism against the sole remaining bulwark of national independence; to those, a war for personal liberty against the domineering power and piratical violence of a would-be monopolist and tyrant of the ocean. Nor should it be forgotten, in the estimate of motives, that if behind that sympathy for the kidnapped and enslaved which tipped the arrow shot at Great Britain, there were the many baser impulses already enumerated; so, also, among those who shouted for peace, were multitudes who thought neither of national honor nor of personal rights, but who looked only to the effect which war might be likely to have on their own pecuniary interests; caring little so long as the British abstained from the seizure of property, and satisfied themselves with the mere seizing of men, whether the subjects of that theft were really aliens, who had no right to expect us to involve ourselves on their behalf in a quarrel with Great Britain, or were, in fact, their own sea-faring fellowcitizens, in their sordid estimation mere instruments for the making of money, as much so as the Southern slaves were in the eyes of the planters, and for whose freedom, except so far as it might affect the safe sailing of their ships, they cared just as little. Whatever might be thought of the conduct of the British government in the impressment and detention of American sailors, their procedures as to American ships and merchandise in their harbors, when news arrived of Aug. 24. the declaration of war, presented a striking contrast to Bonaparte's confiscations. To all such vessels six weeks were allowed in which to dispose of their lading, and free XXV. CHAPTER ly to depart on condition of taking cargoes of British goods, protections being also furnished against capture on their 1812. passage home. This piece of unusual favor, principally intended as a means of relief to the complaining British manufacturers, was yet well calculated to operate on the minds of the American merchants; especially as the ves sels and cargoes, thus released by the politic clemency of the British, were liable, on reaching home, to confiscation, under the act of March, 1811, because they had British goods on board. Not till after the failure, in consequence of the revival of the impressment controversy, of all hope of the termination of hostilities, were British letters of marque Oct. 12. and reprisal at length issued against American commerce. Even subsequently, licenses or protections continued to be freely granted to American vessels profitably engaged in transporting flour to supply the British armies in Spain, a traffic subjected to penalties by Congress, and declared ground of capture and confiscation by the American prize courts, but which continued throughout the war the chief branch of export trade. Aug. 29. The armistice on the New York frontier had been speedily terminated, but the disaster of Hull and the deficiency of men and means, had checked the late extreme confidence in the easy conquest of Canada. To put Dearborn in a condition to act with effect, Governor Tompkins made the greatest efforts to get out the New York quota of militia. The Democratic Legislature of Vermont at the same time that they passed a stringent drafting law, offered $30 bounty to volunteers, and added to the pay of their militia in service as much as was paid by the United States. By the co-operating exertions of these states and of the war department, some 3000 Sept. 23. regulars and 2000 militia were presently assembled on GENERAL JACOB BROWN. 355 XXV. Lake Champlain, under Dearborn's immediate com- CHAPTER mand. Another force of 2000 militia was stationed at different points along the south bank of the St. Law- 1812. rence, their left resting on Sackett's Harbor. A third army was collected along the Niagara River, from Fort Niagara to Buffalo, then a village of a thousand or two inhabitants, in the midst of a newly-settled district. This latter force of nearly 6000 men, half regulars and volunteers and half militia, was under the immediate command of Major-general Van Rensselaer, a Federalist, and the Federal candidate for governor of New York; considerations, perhaps, which had induced Tompkins to call him into service to command the militia quota of that state. The first skirmishes on the New York frontier grew out of attempts, not unsuccessful, made principally from Ogdensburg, a new but much the largest village on the American side of the St. Lawrence, to intercept the British supplies proceeding upward in boats. The militia officer in command at Ogdensburg was General Jacob Brown. A Pennsylvanian by birth, a Quaker by education, while employed as a teacher in the city of New York, some newspaper essays of his had attracted the attention of Alexander Hamilton, to whom, during the quasi war of '98, he became military secretary. Removing afterward to the new settlements of Northwestern New York, his enterprise had founded the flourishing village of Brownsville, not far from Sackett's Harbor. During the late commercial restrictions, he had been, it was said, largely engaged in clandestine importations from Canada, and had thus acquired a minute local knowledge which now stood him in good stead. His success in repulsing a British force of 700 men, which Oct. 4. attempted to cross from Prescott to attack Ogdensburg, XXV. CHAPTER laid the foundation of a military reputation which soon placed him at the head of the American army. 1812. There had been built on Lake Ontario, out of the gun boat appropriations, but by a fortunate improvement upon Jefferson's model, a sloop of war of light draft, mounting 16 guns. This vessel, called the Oneida, had been furnished, just before the breaking out of the war, with a July 19. regular-bred commander and crew. Attacked shortly after at Sackett's Harbor by five British vessels, three of them larger than herself, but manned only by lake waterman, she succeeded, by landing part of her guns, and establishing a battery on shore, in beating them off. Hull's failure having shown how important was the control of the lakes, a judicious selection was made of Captain Chauncey, hitherto at the head of the New York Navy Yard, to take command on those waters. He was sent to Sackett's Harbor, then held by a garrison of 200 regulars, accompanied Henry Eckford as naval conSept. structor, and soon followed by ship-carpenters, naval stores, guns, and presently by parties of seamen. That newly-settled region could supply nothing but timber; every thing else had to be transported from Albany at vast expense, much of the way through the original wilderness. The imperfect boat navigation of the Mohawk and Wood Creek furnished a conveyance as far as Lake Oneida. Descending thence by the Oswego, the boats coasted the shore of Lake Ontario, not without great risk of capture. A twenty-four gun ship was at once commenced; but for immediate use, Chauncey purchased six of the small schooners employed in the then infant commerce of the lake, which, though very ill adapt ed for war, he armed with four guns each. With these and the Oneida he put out on the lake, and soon drove Nov. 8 the British ships into Kingston. This was an excellent |