law; secondly, though it was at once relinquished by Britain in a
conciliatory spirit, the Americans persisted in their campaign;
thirdly, at the close of the war they did not insist at all on the
abrogation of the Right of Search, in the treaty of peace.

It would be much easier to show what the real causes were:-(1), hatred
of England, lasting over from the Revolution; (2), envy of her
commerce and prestige; and especially (3) the scheme for the conquest
of Canada.

The course of the negotiations exhibit a thoroughly ungenerous course
on the part of the American authorities, contrasted with a desire not
to offend on the part of Britain. President Madison's Declaration of
War was made on the 18th of June, 1812, and the British Government,
after using every honorable overture for friendship, only issued
theirs in October, couching it, besides, in terms of regret and
reproach at the unfairness in which Madison's party persisted. Owing
to that unfairness and other causes the enterprise also was by no
means unanimously popular in the States. A convention of delegates
from the counties of New York, held in the capitol at Albany, on the
17th and 18th of September, and called the New York Convention,
condemned Madison's party for declaring the war, on account of its
injustice, and "as having been undertaken," they said, "from motives
entirely distinct from those which have been hitherto avowed." The New
England States treated it coldly. Maryland disapproved through her
Legislature. Many persons everywhere looked on it as a mere political
scheme, and when drafted for service in frequent cases bought
themselves substitutes.

It was soon found that a mistake had been made in attacking Canada.