Why Did Great Britian Attack America Again

USS Constitution vs. HMS Guerriere by Thomas Birch, circa 1813 © Bettmann/CORBIS

As we look forward to jubilant the bicentennial of the "Star-Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Central, I have to admit, with deep shame and embarrassment, that until I left England and went to higher in the U.Southward., I assumed the words referred to the War of Independence. In my defense, I suspect I'thou not the just one to make this fault.

For people similar me, who have got their flags and wars mixed upwards, I remember it should be pointed out that at that place may have been merely one War of 1812, simply there are iv distinct versions of it—the American, the British, the Canadian and the Native American. Moreover, amidst Americans, the principal actors in the drama, in that location are multiple variations of the versions, leading to widespread disagreement about the causes, the meaning and even the outcome of the war.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, American commentators painted the battles of 1812-fifteen every bit role of a glorious "2d war for independence." As the 19th century progressed, this view inverse into a more full general story about the "nascence of American liberty" and the founding of the Union. Simply fifty-fifty this annotation could not be sustained, and by the end of the century, the historian Henry Adams was depicting the state of war as an bumming exercise in corrigendum, arrogance and man folly. During the 20th century, historians recast the war in national terms: as a precondition for the entrenchment of Southern slavery, the jumping-off point for the goal of Manifest Destiny and the opening salvos in the race for industrial-capitalist supremacy. The tragic consequences of 1812 for the native nations also began to receive proper attention. Whatever triumphs could exist parsed from the war, it was at present accustomed that none reached the Indian Confederation under Tecumseh. In this postmodern narrative about American selfhood, the "enemy" in the war—Britain—almost disappeared entirely.

Not surprisingly, the Canadian history of the state of war began with a completely different prepare of heroes and villains. If the U.South. has its Paul Revere, Canada has Shawnee chief Tecumseh, who lost his life defending Upper Canada confronting the Americans, and Laura Secord, who struggled through almost 20 miles of swampland in 1813 to warn British and Canadian troops of an imminent set on. For Canadians, the war was, and remains, the cornerstone of nationhood, brought almost by unbridled U.S. aggression. Although they acknowledge there were 2 theaters of war—at bounding main and on state—it is the successful repulse of the ten U.S. incursions betwixt 1812 and 1814 that have received the near attention.

This timber, which survived the burning of the White Business firm 200 years ago, was donated to the Smithsonian after it was discovered during a 1950 renovation. David Burnett

By contrast, the British historiography of the State of war of 1812 has generally consisted of brusque chapters squeezed between the grand sweeping narratives of the Napoleonic Wars. The justification for this begins with the numbers: Roughly 20,000 on all sides died fighting the War of 1812 compared with over 3.5 meg in the Napoleonic. But the brevity with which the war has been treated has immune a persistent myth to grow virtually British ignorance. In the 19th century, the Canadian historian William Kingsford was only half-joking when he commented, "The events of the War of 1812 have not been forgotten in England for they have never been known there." In the 20th, some other Canadian historian remarked that the State of war of 1812 is "an episode in history that makes everybody happy, because everybody interprets it differently...the English are happiest of all, considering they don't even know it happened."

The truth is, the British were never happy. In fact, their feelings ranged from disbelief and betrayal at the beginning of the war to outright fury and resentment at the finish. They regarded the U.S. protests against Regal Navy impressment of American seamen as exaggerated whining at all-time, and a transparent pretext for an attempt on Canada at worst. It was widely known that Thomas Jefferson coveted all of N America for the Usa. When the war started, he wrote to a friend: "The conquering of Canada this yr, equally far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give u.s. experience for the assault of Halifax the next, and the terminal expulsion of England from the American continent." Moreover, British critics interpreted Washington's willingness to go to state of war as proof that America just paid lip service to the ideals of liberty, civil rights and constitutional government. In curt, the British dismissed the United States as a oasis for blackguards and hypocrites.

The long years of fighting Napoleon's ambitions for a earth empire had hardened the British into an "us-confronting-them" mentality. All British accounts of the war—no affair how brief—concentrate on the perceived inequality of purpose between the conflict across the Atlantic and the ane in Europe: with the onetime beingness about wounded feelings and inconvenience, and the latter almost survival or annihilation.

To sympathise the British point of view, information technology is necessary to go back a few years, to 1806, when Napoleon ignited a global economical war past creating the Continental System, which closed every marketplace in the French Empire to British goods. He persuaded Russian federation, Prussia and Republic of austria to join in. Just the British chiffonier was buoyed by the fact that the Royal Navy still ruled the seas, and as long as it could maintain a tight blockade of France's ports there was promise. That hope was turned into practice when London issued the retaliatory Orders in Quango, which prohibited neutral ships from trading with Napoleonic Europe except under license. The Foreign Secretary George Canning wrote: "We have now, what nosotros had once before and one time but in 1800, a maritime war in our power—unfettered by any considerations of whom we may annoy or whom nosotros may offend—And we accept...determination to carry it through."

Canning'due south "whom" most definitely included the Americans. The British noted that the American merchant marine, as one of the few neutral parties left in the game, was doing rather well out of the war: Tonnage between 1802 and 1810 near doubled from 558,000 to 981,000. Nor could the British understand why Jefferson so Madison were prepared to accept Napoleon's false assurances that he would refrain from using the Continental Arrangement against American shipping—simply non have Prime Minister Lord Liverpool's 18-carat promises that wrongly impressed American sailors would be released. Writing home to England, a captain on 1 of the Royal Navy ships patrolling around Halifax complained: "I am really ashamed of the narrow, selfish light in which [the Americans] accept regarded the final struggle for liberty and morality in Europe—but our cousin Jonathan has no romantic fits of energy and acts but upon cool, solid calculation of a proficient marketplace for rice or tobacco!"

It was non until the beginning of 1812 that United kingdom belatedly acknowledged the forcefulness of American grievances. Majestic Navy ships near the American coastline were ordered "not to give whatever just cause of offence to the Government or the subjects of the The states." Captains were as well commanded to have extra care when they searched for British deserters on American ships. Parliament had simply revoked the Orders in Quango when the news arrived that President Madison had signed the Declaration of War on June 18. London was convinced that the assistants would rescind the declaration once information technology heard that the stated cause—the Orders in Council—had been dropped. But when Madison so changed the crusade to impressment of American sailors (which now numbered about 10,000), it dawned on the ministry that state of war was unavoidable.

News of Madison's declaration coincided with momentous developments in Europe. Napoleon Bonaparte and his Grande Armée of 500,000 men—the largest pan-European force ever assembled to that date—invaded Russian federation on June 24 with the aim of forcing Arbiter Alexander I to recommit to the Continental System. Britain decided its simply course of action was to concentrate on Europe and treat the American conflict every bit a side issue. Merely 2 battalions and nine frigates were sent across the Atlantic. Command of the North American naval station was given to Adm. Sir John Borlase Warren, whose orders were to explore all reasonable avenues for negotiation.

***

The first half-dozen months of the war produced a mixed bag of successes and failures for both sides. The larger U.S. warships easily trounced the inferior British frigates sent to the region, and in vi single-transport encounters emerged victorious in every ane. American privateers had an fifty-fifty better year, capturing over 150 British merchant ships worth $2 million. But the British took heart from the land war, which seemed to be going their style with very little effort expended. With the assistance of Shawnee war chief Tecumseh and the Indian Confederation he built upward, the Michigan Territory actually roughshod back into British possession. In belatedly Nov an American attempt to invade Upper Canada concluded in fiasco. The holding pattern was enough to let Henry, third Earl of Bathurst, Secretary for War and the Colonies, to feel justified in having concentrated on Napoleon. "Afterwards the strong representations which I had received of the inadequacy of the force in those American settlements," he wrote to the Duke of Wellington in Spain, "I know non how I should take withstood the attack against me for having sent reinforcements to Espana instead of sending them for the defense of British possessions."

Notwithstanding the early signs in 1813 suggested that Earl Bathurst might still come up to regret starving Canada of reinforcements. York (the future Toronto), the provincial capital of Upper Canada, was captured and burned past U.S. forces on April 27, 1813. Fortunately, in Europe, it was Napoleon who was on the defensive—bled dry by his abortive Russian campaign and proven vulnerable in Kingdom of spain and Federal republic of germany. What few Americans properly grasped was that in British eyes the existent state of war was going to take place at body of water. Although the death of Tecumseh in October 1813 was a severe accident to its Canadian defense strategy, Britain had already felt sufficiently confident to separate nine more than ships from the Mediterranean Fleet and send them across the Atlantic. Admiral Warren was informed, "Nosotros do not intend this as a mere paper blockade, simply as a complete end to all Merchandise & intercourse by body of water with those Ports, as far equally the wind & weather, & the continual presence of a sufficing armed Strength, volition permit and ensure."

New York City and Philadelphia were blockaded. The Imperial Navy also bottled up the Chesapeake and the Delaware. To the British, these successes were considered payback for America's unfair behavior. "Still, we seem to be leading the Yankees a sad life upon their coasts," wrote the British philanthropist William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley, in July 1813. "I am glad of it with all my heart. When they declared war they thought information technology was pretty near over with u.s., and that their weight cast into the calibration would decide our ruin. Luckily they were mistaken, and are probable to pay dear for their error."

Dudley's prediction came true. Despite the best efforts of American privateers to harass British aircraft, it was the U.S. merchant marine that suffered virtually. In 1813 simply a third of American merchant ships got out to sea. The following year the figure would drop to one-twelfth. Nantucket became and then desperate that information technology offered itself upwards to the Royal Navy equally a neutral trading post. America'south oceanic merchandise went from $40 million in 1811 to $2.6 million in 1814. Custom revenues—which made up 90 percent of federal income—fell by 80 percent, leaving the administration virtually bankrupt. By 1814 it could neither heighten money at home nor borrow from away.

When Napoleon abdicated in April 1814, United kingdom expected that America would presently lose middle and surrender too. From then on, London'due south master aims were to bring a swift conclusion to the war, and capture equally much territory as possible in order to gain the best advantage in the inevitable peace talks.

On July 25, 1814, the two foes fought their bloodiest-ever land date at the Battle of Lundy'south Lane, a mile westward of Niagara Falls about the New York-Canada border. There were over 1,700 casualties, among them America'due south dream of annexing Canada. A month later, on Baronial 24, the British burned down the White House and several other government buildings. To Prime Minister Liverpool, the war had been won, bar the skirmishing to be done by the diplomatic negotiators taking place in Ghent, Belgium.

London was quite put out to discover that the administration in Washington failed to share its view. President Madison did not regard America every bit having been defeated. Simply two weeks later, on September 11, 1814, U.S. troops soundly beat back a British attack on Lake Champlain near the New York-Canada border. The poet Francis Scott Central didn't believe his country was defeated, either, later on he saw "by the dawn'southward early light" the American flag still flying above Fort McHenry exterior Baltimore Harbor on September 14. Nor did Gen. Andrew Jackson, particularly later his resounding victory against British forces outside New Orleans on January 8, 1815—two weeks after the peace negotiations between the two countries had been ended.

The late flurry of U.S. successes dashed British hopes of squeezing concessions at the Ghent talks. This led the negotiators to abandon the program to insist on a buffer state for the defeated Native American tribes that had helped British troops. Prime Government minister Liverpool gave up trying to teach the Americans a lesson: "Nosotros might certainly land in dissimilar parts of their coast, and destroy some of their towns, or put them under contribution; but in the nowadays land of the public heed in America it would be in vain to expect any permanent skillful effects from operations of this nature."

The British realized that merely getting the Americans to the negotiating table in Ghent was the best they were going to achieve. They also knew that Canada was too large and besides sparsely populated to be properly defended. In that location was as well the affair of general war-weariness. British families wanted their menfolk home. Lord Liverpool feared that fourth dimension was going against them. After the negotiations were concluded on Christmas Eve 1814, he wrote: "I exercise not believe it would take been possible to accept connected [wartime taxes] for the purpose of carrying on an American war....The question there was whether, under all these circumstances, it was not better to conclude the peace at the present moment, before the impatience of the state on the subject had been manifested at public meetings, or by motions in Parliament."

Although nobody gained from the Treaty of Ghent, it is of import to notation that (with the exception of the later betrayals suffered past the Native American tribes) zippo was lost either. Moreover, both countries had new victories to bask. The U.S. found glory at the Boxing of New Orleans, while half dozen months later the British establish theirs when the Duke of Wellington inflicted a crushing defeat over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. Both victories overshadowed everything that had taken place during the previous two years. For America, 1812 became the war in which it had finally gained its independence. For Britain, 1812 became the skirmish information technology had contained, while winning the real state of war against its greatest nemesis, Napoleon.

American History British History War of 1812

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Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/british-view-war-1812-quite-differently-americans-do-180951852/