war. Impressments, blockades, Orders in
Council, the Indian relations, the West Indian trade rights,--all were
abandoned. So far as the United States was concerned the treaty was an
acknowledgment of defeat, a recognition that the war was a failure.

In view of the hopes of Canadian gains, the treaty was denounced in
England by the Opposition journals and many of those most antagonistic
to America as a cowardly surrender. But it was none the less heartily
accepted by both peoples and both governments. It reached the United
States on February 11, was sent to the Senate on February 15, and
ratified unanimously the next day. There {243} still remained various
vessels at sea, and so the winter of 1815 saw not only the amazing
victory of Jackson at New Orleans, but also several naval actions, in
which the United States frigate _President_ was taken by a squadron of
British blockades, two American sloops in duels took two British
smaller vessels, and the American _Constitution_, in a night action,
captured, together, two British sloops. Then the news spread, and
peace finally arrived in fact.

In England, the whole affair was quickly forgotten in the tremendous
excitement caused by the return of Napoleon from Elba, the uprising of
Europe, and the dramatic meeting of the two great captains, Wellington
and Napoleon, in the Waterloo campaign. By the time the Napoleonic
Empire had finally collapsed, the story of the American war, with its
maritime losses and scanty land triumphs, was an old one, and the
British exporters, rushing to regain their former markets, were happy
in the prospect of the reopening of American ports. By October, trade
relations were re-established and the solid intercourse of the two
countries was under way.

In America all disgraces and defeats were forgotten in the memories of
New Orleans, Plattsburg, and Chippawa, and the people at large, willing
to forgive all its failures to the {244} Republican administration,
resumed with entire contentment the occupations of peace. The war
fabric melted like a cloud; armies were disbanded, vessels were called
home, credit rose, prices sprang upward, importations swelled,
exportation began.

In truth, the time of antagonism was at an end, for, with the European
peace of 1814, the immediate cause for irritation was removed, never to
return. The whole structure of blockades, Orders in Council, seizures,
and restrictions upon neutrals vanished; the necess