The War With the United States

patch up peace again after war had broken out, that
they purposely refrained from putting forth their full
available naval strength till 1813. At the same time,
they would naturally have preferred victory to defeat;
and the fact that most of the British Navy was engaged
elsewhere, and that what was available was partly held
in leash, by no means dims the glory of those four
men-of-war which the Americans fought with so much bravery
and skill, and with such well-deserved success. No wonder
Wellington said peace with the United States would be
worth having at any honourable price, 'if we could only
take some of their damned frigates!' Peace was not to
come for another eighteen months. But though the Americans
won a few more duels out at sea, besides two annihilating
flotilla victories on the Lakes, their coast was blockaded
as completely as Napoleon's, once the British Navy had
begun its concerted movements on a comprehensive scale.
From that time forward the British began to win the naval
war, although they won no battles and only one duel that
has lived in history. This dramatic duel, fought between
the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_ on June 1, 1813, was
not itself a more decisive victory for the British than
previous frigate duels had been for the Americans. But
it serves better than any other special event to mark
the change from the first period, when the Americans
roved the sea as conquerors, to the second, when they
were gradually blockaded into utter impotence.

Having now followed the thread of naval events to a point
beyond the other limits of this chapter, we must return to
the American movements against the Canadian frontier and
the British counter-movements intended to checkmate them.

Quebec and Halifax, the two great Canadian seaports, were
safe from immediate American attack; though Quebec was
the ultimate objective of the Americans all through the
war. But the frontier west of Quebec offered several
tempting chances for a vigorous invasion, if the American
nava

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