his army had executed some disjointed manoeuvres, he
withdrew the whole and gave up in despair.

From this point of the Canadian frontier to the very end
of the five-thousand-mile loop, that is, from Montreal
to Mexico, the theatre of operations was directly based
upon the sea, where the British Navy was by this time
undisputedly supreme. A very few small American men-of-war
were still at large, together with a much greater number
of privateers. But they had no power whatever even to
mitigate the irresistible blockade of the whole coast-line
of the United States. American sea-borne commerce simply
died away; for no mercantile marine could have any
independent life when its trade had to be carried on by
a constantly decreasing tonnage; when, too, it could go
to sea at all only by furtive evasion, and when it had
to take cargo at risks so great that they could not be
covered either by insurance or by any attainable profits.
The Atlantic being barred by this Great Blockade, and
the Pacific being inaccessible, the only practical way
left open to American trade was through the British lines
by land or sea. Some American seamen shipped in British
vessels. Some American ships sailed under British colours.
But the chief external American trade was done illicitly,
by 'underground,' with the British West Indies and with
Canada itself. This was, of course, in direct defiance
of the American government, and to the direct detriment
of the United States as a nation. It was equally to the
direct benefit of the British colonies in general and of
Nova Scotia in particular. American harbours had never