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
3 - FROM BUSINESS PARTNERS TO ENEMIES: Britain and the United States before 1812
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
[W]ith an extensive and fertile country, and a small population compared to the extent of our territory, we have annually a large surplus to export to foreign markets; … on the export of this surplus, which is cut off by war, depends in a great degree, the ability of the farmer to meet taxes.
(‘State of the Finances’, John Eppes, Chairman of Ways and Means Committee, House of Representatives, 10 October 1814)THE TREATY OF PARIS, securing the independence of the United States from Britain in September 1783, had been preceded by a British Order in Council of 2 July that year, changing the terms under which Americans had traded as colonial Britons. It was thought by some that Britain's major trading partners were about to become foreign trading rivals. John Holroyd, Lord Sheffield, argued in his influential pamphlet that to allow the Americans any trading advantages for which they no longer qualified could threaten Britain's long-term commercial and maritime supremacy. Conversely, the West India Committee, lobbying Parliament on behalf of the plantation owners, shippers and merchants of the British West Indies, argued as early as April 1783 that permission for ‘American ships as heretofore, freely to bring the produce of the dominions of the United States to the sugar colonies and to take back our produce in return is … essential’.
Despite the debate, in fact, ‘a single Atlantic economy’ soon re-asserted itself, an ‘extensive flow of goods, ideas, skilled migrants and capital’ again contributing to a great degree of economic interdependence between the United States and the United Kingdom.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- How Britain Won the War of 1812The Royal Navy's Blockades of the United States, 1812-1815, pp. 46 - 63Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011