And each time, British leaders showed little interest in accommodating the Americans. In both cases, American interests and goals conflicted with those of the British Empire.
The second had older roots in the colonial and Revolutionary era. The first had to do with the nation’s desire to maintain its position as a neutral trading nation during the series of Anglo-French wars, which began in the aftermath of the French Revolution in 1793.
The War of 1812 stemmed from the United States’ entanglement in two distinct sets of international issues. Yet war with Britain loomed-a war that would galvanize the young American nation and convince many citizens that the many voices now inhabiting the national political arena all spoke with one voice. Although it was unpopular, Jefferson still believed that more time would have proven that peaceable coercion truly was an effective weapon of international diplomacy. Though not entirely effective, the blockade strangled American seaborne trade.Soon after Jefferson retired from the presidency in 1808, Congress ended the Embargo, as the British relaxed their policies toward American ships. Captain James Lawrence rashly sailed from Boston with a poorly prepared ship and crew and was overwhelmed in just 15 minutes of fighting. frigates was somewhat assuaged by Captain Philip Broke’s defeat of the USS Chesapeake with his HMS Shannon on June 1, 1813. New England was not at first officially blockaded, but its merchant fleet suffered as well.īritish embarrassment over its losses to the heavy U.S. warships were bottled up in port, from which only a few were able to slip out. The British officially declared a blockade of part of the Atlantic coast in November 1812, gradually extending it to the entire length of the United States by the end of 1813. Its overwhelming superiority in numbers of ships began to tell as more vessels cruised off important ports to intercept U.S. American successes in single-ship actions did not seriously impede the operations of the Royal Navy.
0 kommentar(er)
