compelled them to seek homes in the Canadian wilderness, and had even
followed them with its enmities in their new abodes; that party had
sympathized with the revolutionists of France, who crimsoned the streets
of Paris with the blood of their Sovereign and fellow-citizens, and who
sent emissaries to Canada to subvert legal authority, and excite the
strife of anarchy and bloodshed. The base of the operations of all the
emissaries of French revolutionists in Canada was for twenty years the
United States, aided directly and indirectly by American sympathizers;
that same party sympathized and even leagued with Napoleon against
England while she was defending the liberties of Europe and of mankind;
it was the same party that in subsequent years aided the rebel Mackenzie
and the rabble Fenians to invade Canada, allowing the United States to
be the base of their organizations, and opening to them the American
arsenals of arms and ammunition; it was the same party that, in
conspiracy with the Tyrant of France and the enemy of human freedom,
declared war against Great Britain in 1812, in order to wrest Canada
from her possession, and make it an appendage of France and the United
States.[176]

The American Government alleged two reasons as the ground of its
declaration of war against Britain: the one was, that the British
Government had issued Orders in Council which injured the American
commerce with other countries; the other was, that the British
Government had infringed the rights of the United States by authorizing
the boarding of American vessels in search of deserters from the English
army and navy, and seizing them.

As to the first of these reasons, namely, the English Orders in Council,
the facts are as follow: "After the annihilation of the naval power of
France at _Trafalgar_ in 1805, by Lord Nelson, the principal
transactions of France at sea were the fitting out and arming of
privateers to prey upon the English merchant vessels and commerce. To
accomplish his purpose more effectually, Napoleon promulgated the
following year after the destruction of his fleet what is called the
Berlin Decree."[177]

"No nation was allowed to trade with any other country in any articles
the growth, produce, or manufactures of any of the British dominions,
all of which, as well as the island of Great Britain itself, were
declared to be in a state of blockade. He appointed residents in every
trading country, and no ship was to be a