musters the
four hundred American seamen, picks out four men as British deserters,
learns that another deserter has been killed and a sixth has jumped
overboard rather than be retaken, takes his prisoners back to the
_Leopard_, which proceeds to Halifax, where they are tried by
court-martial and shot.

It isn't exactly surprising that the episode literally set the United
States on fire with rage, and that the American President {336} at once
ordered all American ports closed to British war vessels. The quarrel
dragged on between the two governments for five years. England saw at
once that she had gone too far and violated international law. She
repudiated Admiral Berkeley's order, offered to apologize and pension
the heirs of the victims; but _as she would not repudiate either the
right of impressment or the right of search_, the American government
refused to receive the apology.

[Illustration: GENERAL SIR JAMES HENRY CRAIG, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF
CANADA, 1807-1811]

Other causes fanned the flame of war. The United States was now almost
the only nation neutral in Napoleon's wars. To cripple English
commerce, Napoleon forbids neutral nations trading at English ports.
By way of retaliation England forbids neutral nations trading with
French ports; and the United States strikes back by closing American
ports to both nations. It means blue ruin to American trade, but the
United States cannot permit herself to be ground between the upper and
nether millstones of two hostile European powers. Then, sharp as a
gamester playing his trump card, Napoleon revokes his embargo in 1810,
which leaves England the offender against the United States. Then
Governor Craig of Canada commits an error that must have delighted the
heart of Napoleon, who always profited by his enemy's blunders. Well
meaning, but {337} fatally ill and easily alarmed, Craig sends one John
Henry from Montreal in 1809 as spy to the United States for the double
purpose of sounding public opinion on the subject of war, and of
putting any Federalists in favor of withdrawing from the Union in touch
with British authorities. Craig goes home to England to die. Henry
fails to collect reward for his ignoble services, turns traitor, and
sells the entire correspondence to the war party in the United States
for $10,000. That spy business adds fuel to fire. Then there are
other quarrels. A deserter from the American army is found teaching
school near Cornwall