origin, from their common interest, from their professed principles of freedom and independence, the United States was the last power in which Great Britain could have expected to find a willing instrument and abettor of French tyranny and despotism. The Americans, however, seem to have been blinded by a short-sighted view of European affairs, not anticipating that a few months would produce a complete revolution in the whole aspect of continental affairs, and that the power of Napoleon would in so short a period have passed away.
Impressment of American seamen. When the English Parliament re-assembled in February 1813, the House of Commons unanimously carried the address approving the war with the United States, on the ground of maintaining the maritime rights of Great Britain. The Americans had industriously circulated a report that the British had impressed fifteen thousand to twenty thousand American seamen. The absurdity of such a statement must be apparent to every reflecting person; the report, however, was not addressed to such parties, but to the demagogues of both countries, who alone desired war. By the Admiralty records it was plainly proved that out of one hundred and forty-five thousand seamen then employed in the British navy, the whole number who claimed to be American subjects, a claim, too, the justice of which rested upon their simple declaration, was but three thousand five hundred, and that out of every four individuals who claimed their discharge in right of being citizens of the United States, only one established his claim on any tolerable ground whatever. Supposing, however, one-half of the claimants to have had a rational ground for demanding
