some of the relations of Great Britain toward ourselves, since Great
Britain is not only our most important friend, assuming that she remain a
friend, but our most formidable competitor, should competition strain our
friendship. Also Great Britain has the social system nearest akin to our
own, and most likely to be influenced by the same so-called democratic
tendencies. For upwards of a hundred years Great Britain has been, and she
still is, absolutely dependent on her maritime supremacy for life. It was
on that issue she fought the Napoleonic wars, and when she prevailed at
Trafalgar and Waterloo she assumed economic supremacy, but only on the
condition that she should always be ready and willing to defend it, for it
is only on that condition that economic supremacy can be maintained. War
is the most potent engine of economic competition. Constantinople and
Antwerp survived and flourished on the same identical conditions long
before the day of London. She must keep her avenues of communication with
all the world open, and guard them against possible attack. So long as
America competed actively with England on the sea, even for her own trade,
her relations with Great Britain were troubled. The irritation of the
colonies with the restrictions which England put upon their commerce
materially contributed to foment the revolution, as abundantly appears in
the famous case of John Hancock's sloop Liberty, which was seized for
smuggling. So in the War of 1812, England could not endure the United
States as a competitor in her contest with France. She must be an ally,
or, in other words, she must function as a component part of the British
economic system, or she must be crushed. The crisis came with the attack
of the Leopard on the Chesapeake in 1807, after which the possibility of
maintaining peace, under such a pressure, appeared, in its true light, as
a phantasm. After the war, with more or less constant friction, the same
conditions continued until the outbreak of the Rebellion, and then Great
Britain manifested her true animus as a competitor. She waged an
unacknowledged campaign against the commerce of the United States,