tion for that sweep of American
legitimate commerce, by the extended marine of Great Britain, which the
desperate act of declaring war invited? Would Canada compensate the
middle States for New York, or the Western States for New Orleans? They
would not be deceived! A war of invasion might invite a retort of
invasion. When Americans visited the peaceable, and, to Americans, the
innocent colonies of Great Britain, with the horrors of war, could
Americans be assured that their own coast would not be visited with
like horrors. At such a crisis of the world, and under impressions such
as these, the minority could not consider the war into which the United
States had, in secret, been precipitated, as necessary, or required by
any moral duty, or any political expediency. The country was divided in
opinion, respecting either the propriety or the expediency of the war.
The friends of the administration were universally in favor of it.

[16] Allison, page 656.

That there was no just cause for a declaration of war on the part of
the United States, it may be sufficient to state that the news of the
repeal of the obnoxious Order in Council, reached the United States
before England was aware of the declaration of war. But the American
government wanted a war as an excuse for a filibustering expedition to
Canada, which was to be peaceably separated from Great Britain, and
quietly annexed to the United States. Then existing differences would
have been speedily patched up to the satisfaction of all parties, the
Lower Canadians being, in the language of Sir James Craig, treasonable,
seditious, and attached to the country with which the United States was
in alliance, France. The United States were not prepared for war. While
Great Britain had a hundred sail of the line in commission, and a
thousand ships of war bore the royal flag, the Americans had only four
frigates and eight sloops in commission, and their whole naval force
afloat in ordinary, and building for the Ocean and the Canadian Lakes,
was eight frigates and twelve sloops. Their military force only
amounted to twenty-five thousand men, to be enlisted for the most part,
but the President was authorised to call out one hundred thousand
militia, for the purpose of defending the sea coast and the Canadian
frontiers. The greatest want of all was proper officers. The ablest of
the revolutionary heroes had paid the debt of nature, and there was no
military officer to whom fam