e course Great
Britain was following impolitic to the verge of madness, because it
would add to her war embarrassments the activity of an imposing
maritime enemy, at the threshold of her most valuable markets,--the
West Indies,--three thousand miles away from her own shores and from
the seat of her principal and necessary warfare. The United States
could not have encountered Great Britain single-handed--true; but
there was not then the slightest prospect of her having to do so. The
injuries of which she complained were incidental to a state of
European war; inconceivable and impossible apart from it. She was
therefore assured of the support of most powerful allies, occupying
the attention of the British navy and draining the resources of the
British empire. This condition of things was notorious, as was the
fact that, despite the disappointment of Trafalgar, Napoleon was
sedulously restoring the numbers of a navy, to the restraining of
which his enemy was barely competent.

The anxiety caused to the British Admiralty by the operations of the
small American squadrons in the autumn of 1812 has already been
depicted in quotations from its despatches to Warren.[215] Three or
four divisions, each containing one to two ships of the line, were
kept on the go, following a general round in successive relief, but
together amounting to five or six battle ships--to use the modern
term--with proportionate cruisers. It was not possible to diminish
this total by concentrating them, for the essence of the scheme, and
the necessity which dictated it, was to cover a wide sweep of ocean,
and to protect several maritime strategic points through which the
streams of commerce, controlled by well-known conditions, passed,
intersected, or converged. So also the Admiralty signified its wish
that one ship of the line should form the backbone of the blockade
before each of the American harbors. For this purpose Warren's fleet
was raised to a number stated by the Admiralty's letter to him of
January 9, 1813, to be "upwards of ten of the line, exclusive of the
six sail of the line appropriated to the protection of the West India
convoys." These numbers were additional to detachments which, outside
of his command, were patrolling the eastern Atlantic, about the
equator, and from the Cape Verde Islands to the Azores, as mentioned
in another letter of February 10. "In all, therefore, about twenty
sail of the line were employed on account of American