the two peoples? Take the simple report of a British
periodical in the same month of May, 1813: "We are happy to announce
the arrival of a valuable fleet from the West Indies, consisting of
two hundred and twenty-six sail, under convoy of the "Cumberland,"
seventy-four, and three other ships of war."[34] This one fleet among
many, safely entering port, numbers more than half of their total
losses in the twelvemonth. Contrast this relative security with the
experience of the "Ned," cited a few pages back, hunted from headland
to headland on her home coast, and slipping in--a single ship by
dexterous management--past foes from whom no countryman can pretend to
shield her.

Even more mortifying to Americans, because under their very eyes, in
sharp contrast to their sufferings, was the prosperity of Halifax and
Canada. Vexed though British commerce was by the daring activity of
American cruisers, the main streams continued to flow; diminished in
volume, but not interrupted. The closure of American harbors threw
upon the two ports named the business of supplying American products
to the British forces, the British West Indies, and in measure to
Great Britain itself. The same reason fixed in them the deposit of
British goods, to be illicitly conveyed into the United States by the
smuggling that went on actively along the northern seacoast and land
frontier; a revival of the practices under the embargo of 1808. This
underground traffic was of course inadequate to compensate for that
lost by the war and the blockade; but it was quite sufficient to add
immensely to the prosperity of these places, the communications of
which with the sea were held open and free by the British navy, and in
which centred what was left from one of the most important branches of
British trade in the days of peace. Halifax, from its position on the
sea, was the chief gainer. The effects of the war on it were very
marked. Trade was active. Prices rose. Provisions were in great
demand, to the profit of agriculture and fisheries. Rents doubled and
trebled. The frequent arrival of prizes, and of ships of war going and
coming, added to the transactions, and made money plentiful.[35]

Recalling the generalization already made, that the seacoast of the
United States was strictly a defensive frontier, it will be recognized
that the successive institution of the commercial blockades, first of
the Chesapeake and Delaware in March, and afterward of the whole c