Sea power was England's weapon, and in her claim
to forbid all neutral traffic with her enemies and to exercise
the galling right of search, she pressed it far. France trampled
still more ruthlessly on American and neutral rights; but, with
memories of 1776 still fresh, the dominant party in the United
States was disposed to forgive France and to hold England to
strict account.
England had struck at France, regardless of how the blow might
injure neutrals. Now the United States sought to strike at
England through the colonies, regardless of their lack of any
responsibility for English policy. The "war hawks" of the South
and West called loudly for the speedy invasion and capture of
Canada as a means of punishing England. In so far as the British
North American colonies were but possessions of Great Britain,
overseas plantations, the course of the United States could be
justified. But potentially these colonies were more than mere
possessions. They were a nation in the making, with a right to
their own development; they were not simply a pawn in the game of
Britain and the United States. Quite aside from the original
rights or wrongs of the war, the invasion of Canada was from this
standpoint an act of aggression. "Agrarian cupidity, not maritime
right, wages this war," insisted John Randolph of Roanoke, the
chief opponent of the "war hawks" in Congress.
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