OPPOSING CLAIMS

International disputes that end in war are not generally
questions of absolute right and wrong. They may quite as
well be questions of opposing rights. But, when there
are rights on both sides; it is usually found that the
side which takes the initiative is moved by its national
desires as well as by its claims of right.

This could hardly be better exemplified than by the vexed
questions which brought about the War of 1812. The British
were fighting for life and liberty against Napoleon.
Napoleon was fighting to master the whole of Europe. The
United States wished to make as much as possible out of
unrestricted trade with both belligerents. But Napoleon's
Berlin Decree forbade all intercourse whatever with the
British, while the British Orders-in-Council forbade all
intercourse whatever with Napoleon and his allies, except
on condition that the trade should first pass through
British ports. Between two such desperate antagonists
there was no safe place for an unarmed, independent,
'free-trading' neutral. Every one was forced to take
sides. The British being overwhelmingly strong at sea,
while the French were correspondingly strong on land,
American shipping was bound to suffer more from the
British than from the French. The French seized every
American vessel that infringed the Berlin Decree whenever
they could manage to do so. But the British seized so
many more for infringing the Orders-in-Council that the