izes[32] to American
cruisers, national as well as privateers, gives three hundred and five
as the total for the first six months of the war; of which
seventy-nine only seem to have been taken distant from the home
shores. For the second six months, to June 30, 1813, the aggregate has
fallen to one hundred and fifty-nine, of which, as far as can be
probably inferred, ninety-one were captured in remote waters.
Comparing with the preceding and subsequent periods, we find here
evidently a time of transition, when American enterprise had not yet
aroused to the fact that British precaution in the Western Hemisphere
had made it necessary to seek prizes farther afield.

In view of the incompleteness of the data it is difficult to state
more than broad conclusions. It seems fairly safe, however, to say
that after the winter of 1812-13 American commerce dwindled very
rapidly, till in 1814 it was practically annihilated; but that, prior
to Napoleon's downfall, the necessities of the British Government, and
the importunity of the British mercantile community, promoted a
certain collusive intercourse by licenses, or by neutrals, real or
feigned, between the enemy and the Eastern States of the Union, for
the exportation of American produce. This trade, from the reasons
which prompted it, was of course exempt from British capture.
Subsidiary to it, as a partial relief to the loss of the direct
American market, was fostered an indirect smuggling import from Great
Britain, by way of Halifax and Montreal, which conduced greatly to the
prosperity of both these places during the war, as it had during the
preceding periods of commercial restriction. It was to maintain this
contraband traffic, as well as to foster disaffection in an important
section of the Union, that the first extension of the commercial
blockade, issued by Warren from Bermuda, May 26, 1813, stopped short
of Newport; while the distinction thus drawn was emphasized, by
turning back vessels even with British licenses seeking to sail from
the Chesapeake. By this insidious action the commercial prosperity of
the country, so far as any existed, was centred about the Eastern
States. It was, however, almost purely local. Little relief reached
the Middle and South, which besides, as before mentioned, were thus
drained of specie, while their products lay idle in their stores.

As regards relative captures made by the two belligerents, exact
numbers cannot be affirmed; but from t