Under
these commissions, hundreds of private vessels armed themselves and
preyed on the enemy, atoning for the ill success of the American arms
on the land.]
Every resistance to England's coercive measures was considered by her
as a tacit aid to Napoleon. To the English mind, the hostile attitude
of the Americans was a return to the French-American alliance of the
Revolutionary days. The Americans were repaying their debt of
obligations, but with an important difference. Where a King of France
had aided colonists struggling for freedom, the colonists, now grown
to a nation, were aiding the greatest enemy to freedom the world had
yet seen. It was said that it would be simply a just retribution on
America if England should withdraw from the breach and allow Napoleon
to turn his ambitious designs upon the Western Republic. He would not
hesitate to retake Louisiana, according to British opinion, for his
revived American Empire.
Clay had not been the only speaker to indulge in braggadocio and
boasting. In all the debates in Congress, Canada was to be invaded on
the northern boundary and rolled up at each end.
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