he lists transmitted a fairly
correct estimate can be formed as to the comparative injury done in
this way. It must be remembered that such losses, however grievous in
themselves, and productive of individual suffering, have by no means
the decisive effect produced by the stoppage of commerce, even though
such cessation involves no more than the retention in harbor of the
belligerent's ships, as the Americans were after 1812, or as had been
the case during Jefferson's embargo of 1808. As that measure and its
congeners failed in their object of bringing the British Government to
terms, by deprivation of commerce, the pecuniary harm done the United
States by them was much greater than that suffered in the previous
years from the arbitrary action of Great Britain. She had seized, it
was alleged, as many as nine hundred and seventeen American
vessels,[33] many of which were condemned contrary to law, while the
remainder suffered loss from detention and attendant expenses; but
despite all this the commercial prosperity was such that the
commercial classes were averse to resenting the insults and injury. It
was the agricultural sections of the country, not the commercial,
which forced on the war.

Niles' Register has transmitted a careful contemporary compilation of
American captures, in closing which the editor affirmed that in the
course of the war he had examined not less than ten, perhaps twelve,
thousand columns of ship news, rejecting all prizes not accounted for
by arrival or destruction. It is unlikely that data complete as he
used are now attainable, even if an increase of accuracy in this point
were worth the trouble of the search. Up to May 1, 1813, he records
four hundred and eleven captures, in which are included the British
ships of war as well as merchantmen; not a very material addition. The
British Naval Chronicle gives the prize lists of the various British
admirals. From these may be inferred in the same period at least three
hundred seizures of American merchant vessels. Among these are a good
many Chesapeake Bay craft, very small. This excludes privateers, but
not letters-of-marque, which are properly cargo ships. Both figures
are almost certainly underestimates; but not improbably the proportion
of four to three is nearly correct. Granting, however, that the
Americans had seized four British ships for every three lost by
themselves, what does the fact establish as regards the effect upon
the commerce of