contrived, in July, 1804, to force Hamilton into a duel, in which the latter was slain. The mourning of the country over the loss of this great man was intense, and the wretched Burr found that his public career was ruined. After a wild attempt to set up a government for himself in the Mississippi valley, he was arrested and tried for treason, and though acquitted for want of sufficiently definite evidence, he became an outcast from society.

Embargo. Jefferson's second administration was the beginning of a stormy period which ended in war. Under Washington and Adams we had with difficulty been kept from getting drawn into the world-wide struggle between England and France. Now that strife was renewed on such a gigantic scale as to force the whole civilized world to take sides. With his famous Berlin and Milan decrees, Napoleon sought to prevent neutral vessels from entering British harbors, while England replied with decrees, known as orders in council, forbidding neutral vessels to enter the harbors of any nation in league with Napoleon, or under his leadership. The United States, as a prominent maritime neutral nation, had obtained a large share of the carrying trade, and these decrees wrought great injury to American commerce. If an American vessel touched at almost any port of continental Europe, the first British cruiser that came along deemed her its lawful prey; if she touched at a British port, then she might expect to be seized by the next French craft she should meet. The two greatest naval powers in the world were thus united in a wholesale robbery of American ships and American merchandise. But England did us most harm, because she had more war-ships and more privateers than France. In another respect England possessed a peculiar power of annoying us. She claimed and exercised the right of stopping the vessels of other nations, and forcibly taking from them any seamen who appeared to be British subjects, in order to compel them to serve in the British navy. Such a claim, on the part of France, would annoy Americans but little, for no one was likely to mistake an American for a Frenchman. But to distinguish an American from an Englishman was not so easy, and consequently a great many citizens of the United States were

impressed into the British service. The Revolutionary feeling of hostility to Great Britain, which had begun before 1800 to diminish in intensity, was revived and strengthened by these outrages. In 1807 the British frigate Leopard, of fifty guns, close to the coast of Virginia, fired upon the American frigate Chesapeake, of thirty-eight guns, and killed or wounded more than twenty men. The American ship, being not even prepared for action, hauled down her flag, and was boarded by the British, who seized four of the crew and carried them off to Halifax. One

of these, who was a British subject, was hanged as a deserter; the other three were condemned to death, and then reprieved on condition of entering the British service.

It

At the news of this dastardly outrage the whole country was thrown into such excitement as had not been witnessed since the battle of Lexington. A cabinet meeting was held at Washington, measures were taken for procuring military stores and strengthening our coast defences, and the states were called upon for one hundred thousand men. But the British government avoided war for the moment by sending a special envoy to Washington to chaffer and procrastinate. The act of the Leopard was disavowed, but there was no willingness shown to make reparation. Feeling unprepared for war, the United States government had recourse to an exceedingly stupid and dangerous measure. hoped to browbeat England and France by depriving them of our trade, and accordingly in 1807, there was passed the "embargo act," which forbade any vessel to set out from the United States for any foreign port. This wonderful piece of legislation did more harm to American commerce than all the cruisers of France and England could do; while, as a means of bringing either of these adversaries to reason, it was quite useless. England, indeed, seemed rather to enjoy it, for while it diminished her commercial dealings with America, it increased her share in the general carrying-trade of the world. In America the distress was felt most severely in New England, and, as usual in those days, whenever any part of the country felt dissatisfied with the policy of the Federal government, threats of secession were heard. In

1809 the embargo was repealed, and the "non-intercourse act took its place. This act prohibited trade with England and France so long as their obnoxious measures should be kept in force, but it allowed trade with all other countries. It was as ineffectual as the embargo, but did not do quite so much harm to American commerce. The close of Jefferson's presidency was thus a season of national humiliation. In twenty years our great statesmen had done a wonderful work in creating a government able to make itself respected at home; but it was still too weak, in a military sense, to make itself respected abroad.

Strength of the Republicans. This humiliating situation of the United States was not due to any fault of Jefferson or his party, and in the election of 1808 they won another great victory, though not quite so decisive as in 1804. The Federalist candidates were the same as before, Pinckney and King; and now they obtained 47 of the 176 electoral votės. James Madison, who had been Secretary of State since 1801, was elected President, and George Clinton was re-elected to the vice-presidency. Madison was a political thinker of the highest order, and had done more than any other man toward constructing our Federal Constitution. He had been a leading Federalist, though more moderate than Hamilton or Adams; but had soon taken sides with the Republicans. But his intelligence was too broad to allow him to be a mere man of party; he was never an out-and-out Republican, like Jefferson. By 1804 many of the most intelligent Federalists had gone over to the Republicans; and the more rigid-minded men who were left, especially in New England, made the party more and more narrow and sectional, and at length brought it into general discredit. The most notable defection from the Federalist party was that of John Quincy Adams, about the time of the embargo. Declaration of War. In 1810 Congress repealed the nonintercourse act, which as a measure of intimidation had accomplished nothing. Congress now sought to use the threat of

non-intercourse as a sort of bribe. It informed England and France, that if either nation would repeal its obnoxious edicts, the non-intercourse act would be revived against the other. Napoleon, who was as eminent for lying as for fighting, then informed the United States that he revoked the Berlin and Milan decrees as far as American ships were concerned. At the same time he gave secret orders by which the decrees were to be practically enforced as harshly as ever. But the lie served its purpose. Congress revived the non-intercourse act against Great Britain alone; and in 1811, hostilities actually began on sea and land. On sea, the American frigate President had an encounter with the British sloop Little Belt, and nearly knocked her to pieces without suffering any damage. On land, Tecumseh and his warriors, attacking our northwestern settlements with British assistance, were defeated at Tippecanoe by Gen. Harrison. The growing war-feeling was shown in the election of Henry Clay, of Kentucky, as speaker of the House of Representatives, while on the floor of the House the leadership fell to John Caldwell Calhoun, of South Carolina, and in the Senate to William Crawford, of Georgia. Mr. Madison was nominated for a second term on condition of adopting the warpolicy; and on June 18, 1812, war against Great Britain was formally declared. Five days later the British government revoked its orders in council; but this concession came too late. The Americans had lost all patience, and probably nothing short of an abandonment of the right of search on Great Britain's part could have prevented the war. The Federalists of New England, however, still opposed the war, and of the members of Congress who voted for it, three-fourths were from the South and West. That this Federalist opposition was somewhat factious, would appear from the presidential campaign. The Federalists were too weak to nominate a candidate for the presidency, and Mr. Madison's only competitor was De Witt Clinton, of New York, who had been. nominated by a section of the Republicans as likely to prove a more efficient war magistrate than Madison. Most of the Federalists now supported Clinton in a coalition which, as usual in such cases, proved disastrous to both sides. Of 218 electoral votes,

Madison received 128, and was elected; the Federalists fell more than ever into disfavor, and Clinton's career was henceforth restricted to his own state.

Naval Victories. The election showed that the war was popular. It had been made so by a series of naval victories which astonished everybody. On the 13th of August, the frigate Essex, Captain Porter, captured the sloop Alert, after a fight of eight minutes, without losing a man. On the 19th, the frigate Constitution, Captain Hull, after a half-hour's fight in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, captured the frigate, Guerrière. The American ship had 14 men killed and wounded, and was ready for action again in a couple of hours; the British ship lost 100 men, her three masts with all her rigging were shot away, and her hull was so badly damaged that she could not be carried off as a prize. On the 13th of October, the sloop Wasp, Captain Jones, captured the sloop Frolic, in a desperate fight off Cape Hatteras. On the 25th, the frigate United States, Captain Decatur, captured the frigate Macedonian, off the island of Madeira, after a fight of an hour and a half. The British ship lost 106 men, was totally dismasted, and had nearly 100 shotholes in her hull, but was brought away to America; Decatur's ship lost only 12 men, and was quite uninjured.

These remarkable victories continued. On the 29th of December, the Constitution, Captain Bainbridge, in a two hours' fight off the coast of Brazil, knocked to pieces the frigate Fava, which lost 230 men and had to be destroyed. On the 24th of February, 1813, off the coast of Guiana, the sloop Hornet, Captain Lawrence, destroyed the brig Peacock, which sank before her crew could be removed. The Hornet's rigging was much injured, but she lost only four men.

To appreciate the force of these facts, we need to remember that during the preceding twenty years of almost continuous warfare with France and her allies, in hundreds of such single combats, the British navy had lost but five ships. Now in six fights within a single year against American vessels, the British had been shockingly defeated every time. The explanation was to be found partly in the superiority of our ship-building, partly in the superiority of