Motives of the Americans. by Napoleon for the subjugation of Russia, had evidently calculated that he would succeed, and that, the continental system being established, they, holding a monopoly of the carrying trade, could, in league with France, humble England, their great maritime and commercial rival. Consequently their government declared war on the 18th of May, 1812, and General Hall immediately invaded Canada. But the English declaration of war was not issued until the 11th of October, 1812,[1] about the very moment when Napoleon commenced his fatal retreat from Moscow, which, however, was not then known. Mr. Barlow, the American minister at Paris, had been invited to proceed to Wilna in the rear of the Imperial army; and there can be no doubt that Napoleon, in the event of success, would have dictated the terms of the treaty with the United States which Mr. Barlow had hitherto in vain endeavoured to secure. Napoleon, as everybody knows, failed utterly in his Russian campaign, Barlow died in Poland, and the Americans found themselves at war with England on grounds which not one of their historians ever ventures to defend, and which their statesmen of to-day would heartily repudiate, if war on such shallow and selfish pretences was again attempted.
As it was not until the 11th of May, 1812, that Mr. Barlow received "FOR THE FIRST TIME"[2] a copy of the decree of the 28th of April, 1811, by
- ↑ Though the Bill for declaring war was passed by the House of Representatives by seventy-nine to forty-nine, the votes in the Senate in favour of war were only nineteen to seventeen (see Holmes' 'American Annals," vol. i. p. 448; and 'American Diplomacy,' p. 235.
- ↑ Vide his letters of that date; we use his own words, as quite conclusive.
