f fighting and scuffling, in
which advantage was now on one side, now on the other; but upon the
whole it would appear that the novelty of the conditions and ignorance
of the ground rather imposed upon the imagination of the enemy, and
that their operations against this inside trade were at once less
active and less successful than under the more familiar features
presented by the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts.

Whatever more or less of success or injury attended the coastwise
trade in the several localities, the point to be observed is that the
enemy's operations effectually separated the different sections of the
country from one another, so far as this means of intercourse was
concerned; thereby striking a deadly blow at the mutual support which
might be given by communities differing so markedly in resources,
aptitudes, and industries. The remark before made upon the effect of
headlands, on the minor scale of a particular shore-line, applied with
special force to one so extensive as that of the United States
Atlantic coast in 1813. Cape Cod to the north and Cape Fear to the
south were conspicuous examples of such projection. Combined with the
relatively shelterless and harborless central stretch, intervening
between them, from the Chesapeake to Sandy Hook, they constituted
insuperable obstacles to sustained intercommunication by water. The
presence of the enemy in great numbers before, around, and within the
central section, emphasized the military weakness of position which
nature herself had there imposed. To get by sea from one end of the
country to the other it was necessary to break the blockade in
starting, to take a wide sweep out to sea, and again to break it at
the desired point of entrance. This, however, is not coasting.

The effect which this coast pressure produced upon the welfare of the
several sections is indicated here and there by official utterances.
The war party naturally inclined to minimize unfavorable results, and
their opponents in some measure to exaggerate them; but of the general
tendency there can be no serious doubt. Mr. Pearson, an opposition
member of the House from North Carolina, speaking February 16, 1814,
when the record of 1813 was made up, and the short-lived embargo of
December was yet in force, said: "Blocked up as we are by the enemy's
squadron upon our coast, corked up by our still more unmerciful
embargo and non-importation laws, calculated as it were to fill up the
l