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By Root 2616 0

trading power, and she had been caused considerable inconvenience by both the Continental Blockade and the British response to it. Between 1808 and 1812 American exports fell by some 40 per cent and with them the prices fetched by cotton and tobacco (and, by extension, land). In 1798 French privateering had caused such outrage in Washington it had produced a state of undeclared war with France, and under Napoleon’s rule similar tensions had re-emerged. It was with Britain, however, that trouble was worst. Unlike their opponents, the British had the ability to impose their will on the high seas. The French could impound the relatively small numbers of American ships that reached their ports and were found to be in breach of the treaties of Berlin and Milan. Equally, they could seize a few American prizes in the Atlantic or the Caribbean. But as the Royal Navy had de facto control of all the major sea lanes, American ships were far more likely to be stopped by the British than they were by the French. There was also the added problem of impressment. Constantly in need of men for the Royal Navy, the British argued they had the right to take them wherever they could find them, and American ships were a prime target. Not only did they provide an obvious haven for men who had fled the Royal Navy, but at this time the British government refused to recognize the nationality of anyone born in the United Kingdom as anything other than British. Even men who had been taken to the United States as young boys theoretically remained British subjects and, if sailors, liable to the so-called maritime press. Various estimates have been given of the number of men taken in this fashion over the years, but it may have reached 9,000 . In the short term, there was little the American government could do other than protest, but there was no doubt that the issue was of considerable concern to public opinion (a force of genuine weight in the United States). Indeed, in June 1807 an ill-advised decision on the part of HMS Leopard to stop the American frigate Chesapeake in order to search for British nationals led to widespread anger and even demands for war. This the administration of Thomas Jefferson was not prepared to contemplate, but the issue of the restrictions that had been placed on American shipping was another matter. In an attempt to place pressure on both sides (but especially the British), in April 1806 a law was introduced banning the importation of a number of specified goods and articles which the government considered the United States could either do without or produce for herself, and on 17 December 1807 this measure was supplemented by a much more radical measure that prohibited the export of any goods from American ports.

The trade embargo, however, did not succeed. At this very moment, the British were acquiring new markets and sources of raw material in Latin America. With the economy sliding into ever deeper trouble, pressure began to mount for the use of force. Taking on the British at sea was impossible as the tiny American navy included nothing bigger than a frigate. An obvious target, though, was Canada, whose immense territory was garrisoned by less than 5,000 men. Such a course was doubly attractive. Ever since the War of Independence, settlers had been pushing westwards into the territory that today comprises Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, and these men and women inevitably impinged on the ancestral lands of a variety of Indian tribes. Well aware of the value of an alliance with the Indians, British agents had for years been encouraging them to resist the American advance. And at just this time they found a powerful ally in the great Indian leader, Tecumseh. Of mixed Shawnee and Creek backgrounds, Tecumseh hated white America and believed the Indians faced a choice of either fighting or being overwhelmed: in a variety of chiefs had been forced to sign away most of the state 1795 of Ohio after their defeat in the Miami War, and in 1809 another group were manipulated into giving up yet more land in Indiana. From the

1780s