secution of the war. Madison and his
faction of British haters and war adventurers naturally supposed, that
as Upper Canada consisted of 70,000 inhabitants, and as the British
troops were all engaged in the deadly war with France, except guards of
regular soldiers in the Canadian garrisons, our country would fall an
easy prey to his ambition; Great Britain would be humbled at the feet of
Napoleon, and France and the United States would then divide the power
and commerce of Europe and America. But British and Canadian loyalty,
patriotism, and courage defeated their dark designs against the
liberties of mankind. Even the patriotic and intellectual part of the
American people denounced this unholy intrigue between their own
President and the bloody ursurper of Europe, and this causeless war
against Great Britain. The Legislative Assemblies of Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Maryland condemned the war
policy of President Madison, and some of them declared it to be but a
party proceeding of the President and his minions to keep themselves in
power and subsidize their hungry partizans. Only a small majority of
Congress approved the declaration of war. A convention of the great
State of New York, held at Albany, September, 1812, consisting of
delegates from the several counties of the State, embodied, in
elaborate resolutions, the intelligent American sentiment on the subject
of the war. That convention declared: 'That, without insisting on the
injustice of the present war, taking solely into consideration the time
and circumstances of its declaration, the condition of the country, and
the state of the public mind, we are constrained to consider and feel it
our duty to pronounce it a most rash, unwise and inexpedient measure,
the adoption of which ought forever to deprive its authors of the esteem
and confidence of an enlightened people; because, as the injuries we
have received from France are at least equal in amount to those we have
sustained from England, and have been attended with circumstances of
still greater insult and aggravation; if war were necessary to vindicate
the honour of the country, consistency and impartiality required that
both nations should have been included in the declaration; because, if
it were deemed expedient to exercise our right of selecting our
adversary, prudence and common sense dictated the choice of an enemy
from whose hostility we had nothing to dread. A war with Fra