st warlike of the Democrats,
said: 'It is absurd to suppose that we will not succeed
in our enterprise against the enemy's Provinces. I am
not for stopping at Quebec or anywhere else; but I would
take the whole continent from them, and ask them no
favours. I wish never to see peace till we do. God has
given us the power and the means. We are to blame if we
do not use them.' Eustis, the American Secretary of War,
said: 'We can take Canada without soldiers. We have only
to send officers into the Provinces, and the people,
disaffected towards their own Government, will rally
round our standard.' And Jefferson summed it all up by
prophesying that 'the acquisition of Canada this year,
as far as the neighbourhood of Quebec, will be a mere
matter of marching.' When the leaders talked like this,
it was no wonder their followers thought that the
long-cherished dream of a conquered Canada was at last
about to come true.

CHAPTER II

OPPOSING FORCES

An armed mob must be very big indeed before it has the
slightest chance against a small but disciplined army.

So very obvious a statement might well be taken for
granted in the history of any ordinary war. But '1812'
was not an ordinary war. It was a sprawling and sporadic
war; and it was waged over a vast territory by widely
scattered and singularly heterogeneous forces on both
sides. For this reason it is extremely difficult to view
and understand as one connected whole. Partisan
misrepresentation has never had a better chance. Americans
have dwelt with justifiable pride on the frigate duels
out at sea and the two flotilla battles on the Lakes.
But they have usually forgotten that, though they won
the naval battles, the British won the purely naval war.
The mother-country British, on the other hand, have made
too much of their one important victory at sea, have
passed too lightly over the lessons of the other duels
there, and have forgotten how long it took to sweep the
Stars and Stripes away from the Atlantic. Canadians have,
of course, devoted most attention to the British victories
won in the frontier campaigns on land, which the other
British have heeded too little and Americans have been
only too anxious to forget. Finally, neither the Canadians,
nor the mother-country British, nor yet the Americans,
have often tried to take a comprehensive view of all the
operations by land and sea together.

The character and numbers of the opposing forces have
been even