the enemy; must
have the bridge or ford Napoleon required for his army. Such the United
States had in her seaports, which with moderate protection could keep
an enemy at a distance, and from which escape was possible under
conditions exceedingly dangerous for the detached hostile divisions;
but although possessing these bridge heads leading to the scene of
ocean war, no force to issue from them existed. In those eleven
precious years during which Great Britain by American official returns
had captured 917 American ships,[400] a large proportion of them in
defiance of International Law, as was claimed, and had impressed from
American vessels 6,257 seamen,[401] asserted to be mostly American
citizens, the United States had built two sloops of 18 guns, and two
brigs of 16; and out of twelve frigates had permitted three to rot at
their moorings. To build ships of the line had not even been attempted.
Consequently, except when weather drove them off, puny divisions of
British ships gripped each commercial port by the throat with perfect
safety; and those weather occasions, which constitute the opportunity
of the defendant sea power, could not be improved by military action.

Such in general was the condition of the sea frontier, thrown
inevitably upon the defensive. With the passing comment that, had it
been defended as suggested, Great Britain would never have forced the
war, let us now consider conditions on the Canadian line, where
circumstances eminently favored the offensive by the United States;
for this war should not be regarded simply as a land war or a naval
war, nor yet as a war of offence and again one of defence, but as
being continuously and at all times both offensive and defensive, both
land and sea, in reciprocal influence.

Disregarding as militarily unimportant the artificial boundary
dividing Canada from New York, Vermont, and the eastern parts of the
Union, the frontier separating the land positions of the two
belligerents was the Great Lakes and the river St. Lawrence. This
presented certain characteristic and unusual features. That it was a
water line was a condition not uncommon; but it was exceptionally
marked by those broad expanses which constitute inland seas of great
size and depth, navigable by vessels of the largest sea-going
dimensions. This water system, being continuous and in continual
progress, is best conceived by applying to the whole, from Lake
Superior to the ocean, the name of the g