. 2
Possibly the spectacle of a war favoured by the Southern and Western
people to protect Northern commerce and seamen, a kind of protection
not desired by the people who were being imposed on, no less than the
extraneous nature of these causes, has given rise to the saying current
in the United States that she went to war after the causes were removed
and did not secure anything for which she made war. The war message
of President Madison, sent to Congress on the 1st day of June, 1812,
cited a series of aggressive acts on the part of Great Britain dating
from 1802. The most prominent were the seizure of American seamen and
goods, and the pretended blockade under the orders in council. More
recent and less manifest impositions were described in the disavowal
of agreements made by an accredited minister, Erskine; in the attempt
to dismember the American Union through a secret British agent in the
United States; and the instigation of the Northwest Indians to hostility
by British traders. The message acknowledged that France had also been
guilty of some of these offensive acts, but intimated that they would
be abandoned through negotiations now in progress with that power.
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