Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- MAP 1 The American Eastern Seaboard, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea
- MAP 2 Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River
- Abbreviations
- Note on US Dollar/Pound Sterling Conversion Rates
- Foreword
- Preface
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 CONVOYS AND BLOCKADES: The Evolution of Maritime Economic Warfare
- 2 WAR AT A DISTANCE: Constraints and Solutions
- 3 FROM BUSINESS PARTNERS TO ENEMIES: Britain and the United States before 1812
- 4 THE UNITED STATES BLOCKADED: Admiral Warren's ‘United Command’, August 1812–April 1814
- 5 BLOCKADES AND BLUNDERS: Vice-Admiral Cochrane's Command, April 1814–February 1815
- 6 TRADE AND WAR: The Effects of Warren's Blockades, August 1812–April 1814
- 7 CAPITAL AND CREDIT: The Impact of the Final Phase
- 8 RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
- EPILOGUE
- Appendix A: Maritime Tables
- Appendix B: Economic History Tables
- Notes to the Chapters
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- MAP 1 The American Eastern Seaboard, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea
- MAP 2 Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River
- Abbreviations
- Note on US Dollar/Pound Sterling Conversion Rates
- Foreword
- Preface
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 CONVOYS AND BLOCKADES: The Evolution of Maritime Economic Warfare
- 2 WAR AT A DISTANCE: Constraints and Solutions
- 3 FROM BUSINESS PARTNERS TO ENEMIES: Britain and the United States before 1812
- 4 THE UNITED STATES BLOCKADED: Admiral Warren's ‘United Command’, August 1812–April 1814
- 5 BLOCKADES AND BLUNDERS: Vice-Admiral Cochrane's Command, April 1814–February 1815
- 6 TRADE AND WAR: The Effects of Warren's Blockades, August 1812–April 1814
- 7 CAPITAL AND CREDIT: The Impact of the Final Phase
- 8 RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
- EPILOGUE
- Appendix A: Maritime Tables
- Appendix B: Economic History Tables
- Notes to the Chapters
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
It will be agreed on all sides that most operative [of causes] have been the inadequacy of our system of taxation to form a foundation for public credit … but the public credit at this juncture is so depressed that no hope of adequate succour on moderate terms can safely rest upon it.
(John Eppes, Committee of Ways and Means, to Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Dallas, 14 October 1814)IF, IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY, defeat in war lay in the inability to continue fighting while an opponent was able to do so, then, despite its victory at New Orleans in January 1815, the United States was defeated in the Anglo-American War of 1812. The Americans had failed to occupy Canada, either as a bargaining counter or permanently, as Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin had earlier agreed. Furthermore, the Royal Navy's economic warfare, in the form of its commercial and naval blockades, had deprived the United States of the financial means to continue fighting beyond the first few months of 1815. By depriving the United States of its imports the British commercial blockade had so reduced American customs duties, the major source of government revenue until the last year of the war, as to create major budget deficits and cause American dependence on increasingly unreliable public credit. The British naval blockade had so largely confined the American navy to port as to prevent its being able to lift the British commercial blockade or prevent British amphibious landings and major incursions into the United States at will.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- How Britain Won the War of 1812The Royal Navy's Blockades of the United States, 1812-1815, pp. 204 - 208Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011