The old-time commercial antagonism was also destined to disappear in a few years after the close of the war. At first England clung to the time-honoured West Indian policy, and, when in 1815 the two countries adjusted their commercial relations, American vessels were still excluded, although given the right to trade directly with the East Indies. But already the new economic thought, which regarded competition and reciprocal trade as the ideal, instead of legal discriminations and universal protectionism, was gaining ground, as England became more and more the manufacturing centre of the world. Under Huskisson, in 1825, reciprocity was definitely substituted for exclusion; and a few years later, under Peel and Russell, and within the lifetime of men who had maintained the Orders in Council, the whole {247} elaborate system of laws backed by the logic of Lord Sheffield and James Stephen was cast away and fell into disrepute and oblivion.
In America, it should be added, the rush of settlers into the West and the starting of manufactures served, within a few years from the end of the War of 1812, to alter largely the former dependence of the United States upon foreign commerce. By the time that England was ready to abandon its restrictive policy, the United States was beginning to be a manufacturing nation with its chief wealth in its great internal trade, and the ancient interest in the West Indies was fast falling into insignificance. The same men who raged against the Jay treaty and the Orders in Council lived to forget that they had ever considered the West India trade important. So, on both sides, the end of commercial antagonism was soon to follow on the Treaty of Ghent.
Finally, and more slowly, the original political and social antagonism ceased to be active, and ultimately died out. So far as the United States was concerned, the change was scarcely visible until three-quarters of a century after the Treaty of Ghent. The temper of the American people, formed by Revolutionary traditions and nourished on memories of battle and injuries, remained {248} steadily antagonistic toward England; and the triumph of western social ideals served to emphasize the distinction between the American democrat and the British aristocrat, until dislike became a tradition and a political and literary convention. But the emptiness of this normal national hatred of John Bull was shown in 1898, when, at the first distinct sign of friendliness on the part of the British government and people, the whole American anglophobia vanished, and the people of the continent realized that the time had come for a recognition of the essential and normal harmony of the ancient enemies.
In England, the change began somewhat earlier, for within less than a generation after the Treaty of Ghent the exclusive Tory control collapsed, and the Revolution of 1832 gave the middle classes a share of political power. A few years later the Radicals, representing the working-men, became a distinct force in Parliament, and to middle class and Radicals there was nothing abhorrent in the American Republic. Aristocratic society continued, of course, as in the eighteenth century, to regard the United States with scant respect, and those members of the upper middle classes who took their social tone from the aristocracy commonly reflected their prejudices. But the masses of {249} the British people—whose relatives emigrated steadily to the western land of promise—felt a genuine sympathy and interest in the success of the great democratic experiment, a sympathy which was far deeper and more effective than had been that of the eighteenth-century Whigs. From the moment that these classes made their weight felt in government, the time was at hand when the old social antagonism was to die out, and with it the deep political antipathy which, since the days of 1793, had tinged the official British opinion of a democratic state. The last evidence of the Tory point of view came when, in 1861, the American Civil War brought out the unconcealed aversion of the British nobility and aristocracy for the northern democracy; but on the occasion the equally unconcealed sense of political and social sympathy manifested by the British middle and working classes served to prevent any danger to the United States, and to keep England from aiding in the disruption of the Union.
Thus the Treaty of Ghent, marking the removal of immediate causes of irritation, was the beginning of a period in which the under-lying elements of antagonism between England and the United States were definitely to cease. When every discount is made, the celebration, heartily supported by the national leaders on {250} both sides, of a century of peace between the British, Canadian, and American peoples, does exhibit, in Sir Wilfred Laurier's words, "a spectacle to astound the world by its novelty and grandeur."
{251}
The references to the epoch covered in this volume may be rather sharply divided into those which deal with the years before 1783, and those which relate to the subsequent period. In the first group, there are both British and American works of high excellence, but in the second there are practically none but American authorities, owing to the preoccupation of British writers with the more dramatic and important French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, of the events of parliamentary politics.
For the years 1763-1783 the best American history is E. CHANNING,History of the United States, vol. iii (1912), distinctly independent, thorough, and impartial. S. G. FISHER,The Struggle for American Independence, 2 vols. (1908), is cynically critical and unconventional. Three volumes of theAmerican Nationseries,—G. E. HOWARD,Preliminaries of the Revolution; C. H. VAN TYNE,The American Revolution; and A. C. McLAUGHLIN,The Confederation and the Constitution(1905), are equally scholarly and less detailed. The older American works, exhibiting the traditional "patriotic" view, are best represented by J. FISKE,American Revolution, 2 vols. (1891); and G. BANCROFT,History of the United States, 6 vols. (ed. 1883-1885).
On the English side the most valuable study is in W. E. H. LECKY,England in the Eighteenth Century, vols. iii, iv (1878), a penetrating and impartial analysis. The Whig view appears in SIR G. O. TREVELYAN,The American Revolution, 3 vols. (1899-1907); LORD MAHON,England in the Eighteenth Century, vols. v-vii (1853-1854); and M. MARKS,England and America, 2 vols. (1907), while W. HUNT,Political History, 1760-1801 (1905), alone of recent writers, presents a Tory version of events.
Special works of value are C. STEDMAN,The American War, 2 vols. (1794), the authoritative English contemporary account of military events, and, among recent studies, J. W. FORTESCUE,History of the British Army, vol. iii (1902), which should be compared with H. B. CARRINGTON,Battles of the Revolution(1876); E. MCCRADY,South Carolina in the Revolution, 2 vols. (1901-2); E. J. LOWELL,The Hessians in the {252} Revolution(1884); J. B. PERKINS,France in the American Revolution(1911); C. H. VAN TYNE,The Loyalists(1902), and W. HERTZ,The Old Colonial System(1905). Of especial value are the destructive criticisms in C. F. ADAMS,Studies Military and Diplomatic(1911). The authoritative treatment of naval history is found in A. T. MAHAN,Influence of Sea Power(1890), and in the chapter by the same writer in W. L. CLOWES,History of the Royal Navy, vols. iii, iv (1898-1899).
Among leading biographies are those of Washington by H. C. LODGE (2 vols. 1890), by W. C. FORD (2 vols. 1900), and by GEN. B. T. JOHNSON (1894); of Franklin by J. PARTON (2 vols. 1864), by J. BIGELOW (3 vols. 1874), and by J. T. MORSE (1889); of Henry by M. C. TYLER (1887); of Samuel Adams by J. K. HOSMER (1885); of Robert Morris by E. P. OBERHOLZER (1903), and of Steuben by F. KAPP (1869). On the English side theMemoirs of Horace Walpole(1848); theCorrespondence of George III with Lord North, ed. by W. B. DONNE (1867), are valuable and interesting, and some material may be found in the lives of Burke by T. McNIGHT (2 vols. 1858); of Shelburne by E. G. FITZMAURICE (2 vols. 1875); of Chatham by F. HARRISON (1905) and A. VON RUVILLE (3 vols. 1907); and of Fox by LORD JOHN RUSSELL (3 vols. 1859). The biographies of two governors of Massachusetts, C. A. POWNALL,Thomas Pownall(1908), and J. K. HOSMER,Thomas Hutchinson(1896), are of value as presenting the colonial Tory point of view.
For the period after 1783, the best reference book and the only one which attempts to trace in detail the motives of British as well as American statesmen is HENRY ADAMS,History of the United States, 9 vols. (1891). It is impartially critical, in a style of sustained and caustic vivacity. Almost equally valuable is A. T. MAHAN,Sea Power in Relation to the War of 1812, 2 vols. (1905), which contains the only sympathetic analysis of British naval and commercial policy, 1783-1812, beside being the authoritative work on naval events. The standard American works are J. SCHOULER,History of the United States, vols. i, ii (1882); J. B. MCMASTER,History of the People of the United States, vols. i-iv (1883-1895); R. HILDRETH,History of the United States, vols. ii-vi (1849-1862), and three volumes of theAmerican Nation Series, J. S. BASSETT,The Federalist System; E. CHANNING,The Jeffersonian System, and K. C. BABCOCK,Rise of American Nationality(1906). On the English side there is little in the general histories beyond a chapter on American relations in A. ALISON,Modern Europe, vol. iv (1848), which accurately represents the extreme Tory contempt for the United States, but has no other merit. Works on Canadian history fill this {253} gap to a certain extent, such as W. KINGSFORD,History of Canada, vol. viii (1895).
Beside the work of Mahan (as above) the War of 1812 is dealt with by W. JAMES,Naval History of Great Britain, vols. v-vi (1823), a work of accuracy as to British facts, but of violent anti-American temper; and on the other side by J. F. COOPER,Naval History(1856), and T. ROOSEVELT,Naval War of 1812(1883). Sundry special works dealing with economic and social questions involved in international relations are T. ROOSEVELT,Winning of the West, 4 vols. (1899-1902); W. CUNNINGHAM,Growth of English Industry and Commerce, vol. iii (1893), and W. SMART,Economic Annals of the Nineteenth Century(1910). Biographical material is to be found, in the lives of Washington (as above); of Jefferson by J. SCHOULER, (1897), and by J. T. MORSE (1883); of Hamilton by J. T. MORSE (1882), and F. S. OLIVER (1907); of Gallatin by H. ADAMS (1879); of Madison by G. HUNT (1903); of Josiah Quincy by E. QUINCY (1869). There is some biographical material to be found in BROUGHAM'SLife and Times of Lord Brougham, vol. iii (1872), and in S. WALPOLE,Life of Spencer Perceval, 2 vols. (1874), but for the most part the British version of relations with America after 1783 is still to be discovered only in the contemporary sources such as theParliamentary HistoryandDebates, theAnnual Register, and the partly published papers of such leaders as Pitt, Fox, Grenville, Canning, Castlereagh and Perceval.
A useful sketch, giving prominence to the Treaty of Ghent and theRush-Bagot Agreement, and summarizing earlier and later events, isAShort History of Anglo-American Relations and of the Hundred Years'Peace, by H. S. PERRIS.
Documents and other contemporary material for the whole period may be conveniently found in W. MACDONALD,Select Charters(1904) andSelect Documents(1898); in G. CALLENDER,Economic History of the United States(1909), and A. B. HART,American History told by Contemporaries, vols. ii, iii (1898, 1901).
{254}
Adams, John, in Revolution, 48, 57, 63, 71, 118-125;after 1783, 142, 147, 155, 173-180Adams, John Quincy, 237-241Adams, Samuel, 32, 42, 50, 57, 63, 78, 131, 144Adet, P. A., 172, 173Alexander I, 190, 237Alien and Sedition Acts, 176-180Anti-Federalists, 143, 147Armstrong, John, 223-230Arnold, Benedict, 67, 81, 85, 104
Baltimore, 84, 230, 238, 240Bank of the United States, 145, 146, 183, 218Banks, State, 218, 233Baring, Alexander, 212, 238Bayard, James A., 237, 240Beaumarchais, Caron de, 94Bedford, Duke of, 40Bonaparte, Napoleon, 179, 184-186, 189-198, 202-208, 213-216,227, 236, 243Brock, General Isaac, 220, 221Brougham, Henry, 212Brown, General Jacob, 228, 229Bunker Hill, Battle of, 65, 66, 78, 83Burgoyne, General John, 89-95, 113, 114Burke, Edmund, 52, 60, 68, 73, 74, 96, 115, 116, 161, 165Burr, Aaron, 179, 180
Camden, Battle of, 103Canada, British policy in, 29, 54, 67, 73, 81, 85, 100,119, 122, 127, 155, 158, 200, 210, 211;defence of, 214-229, 239, 241, 244, 245Canning, George, 197, 202, 204, 205, 207, 212Carleton, General Guy, 81, 85, 158Chauncey, Commodore Isaac, 225, 228Clark, George Rogers, 101, 105Clay, Henry, 211, 214, 240, 241Clinton, De Witt, 214Clinton, George, 147, 169Clinton, Sir Henry, 82, 100-103, 109-113Concord, Battle of, 62, 78Confederation, Articles of, 105, 129-136Congress, Continental, 56, 57, 60, 63, 64, 71, 79, 80, 84,88-93, 98, 105, 118, 130Congress of the Confederation,107, 124, 125, 127, 130-138, 142, 157Congress, United States, under Federalists, 140-146, 155, 164,173, 175, 177; under Republicans, 182, 186, 187, 195,199-209, 211, 213, 220, 223, 228, 233, 234Constitution, United States, 139-141, 159, 180, 183, 234Cornwallis, Lord, 86, 103-114
Dartmouth, Earl of, 47, 50Declaration of Independence, 71, 98De Grasse, Admiral, 110-112, 125D'Estaing, Admiral, 100-102Dickinson, John, 42, 50, 57, 64, 105
Elections, Presidential, 142, 147, 178, 178-180, 187, 201, 214Erie, Lake, Battle of, 225Erskine, David M., 204, 205
Fauchet, J. A., 163, 172Finances, of Revolution, 16, 64, 106, 123, 124, 133-135,144-146, 182, 191, 218-220, 228, 233Fox, Charles James, 96, 115-121, 152, 153, 165, 193Franklin, Benjamin, in England, 38, 44, 51, 52, 64;in France, 71, 83, 93-95, 107, 118-124
Cage, General Thomas, 58, 61, 65Gallatin, Albert, 182, 237, 240, 242Gates, General Horatio, 79, 90, 91, 93, 103Genet, Edmond C., 161-163Germaine, Lord George, 53, 76, 77, 88, 115Governors, Colonial, 15-17, 26, 27, 44, 62, 72Grafton, Duke of, 39, 40, 47Greene, General Nathaniel, 79, 84, 104, 109Grenville, George, 28, 30, 31, 35, 45, 53Grenville, William, Lord, 165, 166, 171, 193, 194, 198, 203
Hamilton, Alexander, 132, 135, 144-148, 162, 164, 168, 177,179, 180, 188Harrison, General W. H., 210, 211, 221-225Hartford Convention, 234Henry, Patrick, 32, 42, 50, 57, 78, 131, 144Hillsborough, Lord, 43-53Howe, Admiral, 82, 83, 100, 114Howe, General Sir William, 82-92, 95, 113, 114Hull, General William, 220Hutchinson, Governor Thomas, 49, 52
Indians, of Northwest, 29, 100, 157-159, 164, 168, 209-213,218-225, 239, 244, 245Indians, Southwestern, 157, 210, 224, 229
Jackson, Andrew, 224, 228, 229, 231, 243Jay, John, 42, 57, 118, 120-125, 156, 157, 165-167, 171Jefferson, Thomas, 71, 78, 144, 146, 147, 156, 161, 169,172, 178, 180, 181-188, 193-196, 199-203, 209, 213, 215,217, 235, 236
King's Mountain, Battle of, 104
Lafayette, Marquis de, 102Lee, General Charles, 79, 84, 99Lee, Richard Henry, 57, 144Livingston, Robert R., 125, 186Long Island, Battle of, 83Louis XVI, 93, 95, 156
Madison, James, 132, 135, 142, 144, 146, 147, 163, 164, 172,178, 193, 201-208, 213-215, 230, 233-238, 240Ministries, British, Bute, 35, 40;Grenville, 28, 35, 43;First Rockingham, 36, 39;Grafton, 39-45,North, 47-56, 60, 68-77, 88, 95-98, 114-117, 151;Second Rockingham, 117, 120;Shelburne, 120-123, 126, 152-154;Coalition, 126, 153, 154;Pitt, 152-154, 159, 162-167, 171;Addington, 171;Second Pitt, 171, 192, 193;Lord Grenville, 193, 196, 197;Portland, 197, 202, 207;Perceval, 207, 211-215;Liverpool, 212, 213, 237-241Monroe, James, 172, 173, 186, 196Montgomery, General Richard, 67, 79Morgan, Daniel, 67, 68, 90, 104Morris, Robert, 78, 107, 134
Navigation Acts, 22-25, 29, 38, 55, 72, 132, 150, 155Non-importation Act, 196-200Non-intercourse Act, 202, 206, 213North, Lord, Tory leader, 43-56, 60, 61, 73-76;in Revolutionary war, 77, 97, 115-117, 153
Oswald, Richard, 119-121Otis, James, 27, 32
Perceval, Spencer, 197, 207, 212Perry, Commander O. H., 225Pinckney, C. C., 173, 174Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 9, 36, 38-40, 53, 60, 96-98Pitt, William, 144, 148, 152-154, 171, 176, 189, 192Pownall, Thomas, 41, 47, 53Prevost, Sir George, 230, 231, 234Proclamation of 1763, 29, 122Proctor, Colonel Henry, 221, 225
Quebec Act, 54, 56
Randolph, Edmund, 163, 164, 172Representatives, House of, 164, 180, 211Rochambeau, Comte de, 102, 110, 113Rockingham, Marquis of, 117, 120Rutledge, John, 57, 78, 83
St. Clair, General Arthur, 159St. Leger, Colonel B., 90Sandwich, Earl of, 53, 68, 76, 77, 99, 115Saratoga, Surrender at, 92Scott, Sir William, 193Secession, 188, 201, 234, 235Sedition Act, 176-178, 180Shays' Rebellion, 137Sheffield, Lord, 150, 151, 154, 192, 197, 247Shelburne, Earl of, 117, 119-123, 152-154Sherman, Roger, 78, 135Stamp Act, 30-33, 200States Rights, 146, 178, 234Stephen, James, 192, 197, 207, 247Sugar Act, 25, 29, 31
Talleyrand, 175, 177Tarleton, Colonel B., 103, 110Tecumseh, 210, 211, 220, 221, 224, 225Townshend, Charles, 40-43Townshend Duties, 40-47, 210Treaties, 1763, 9, 28;1778, 95, 98;1783, 117-127, 149-152, 158;1794, 165-172, 193, 196;1795, 168, 184; 1803, 186;1814, 242;1818, 244Trenton, Battle of, 86, 112
Vergennes, Comte de, 93-96, 119-125
Washington, George, Commander,42, 57, 64, 66, 79, 83-93, 99, 100, 107-112, 126;in retirement, 132, 134;President, 142, 144, 146, 147, 159, 162, 164, 167,172-174, 178Wayne, General Anthony, 79, 159, 164Wellington, Duke of, 241, 243West Indies, British, before 1783, 9, 21-27, 99, 102, 108,110, 112, 125;after 1783, 132, 149-151, 166, 167, 246, 247West Indies, French, trade with, 25, 27, 31, 156, 163,167, 191-193, 196Wilkes, John, 44, 45Wilkinson, General James, 226
X. Y. Z. affair, 174, 175
Yorktown, Surrender at, 112, 160, 160