How Britain won the War of 1812: the Royal Navy's blockades of the United States, 1812- 1815

摘要

One of the less observed bicentenaries in 2012 was that of the American invasion of Canada. After several years of embargo and withholding exports, Mr Madison's War was the final American attempt to assert the right of neutral flags to trade unmolested with countries otherwise at war and in protest against the impressment of its seamen into the Royal Navy. While there are many studies of the War of 1812, Arthur's book looks beyond the battlefields to consider the impact of the British Navy's blockade of the American coast. The significance, and particularly the financial effects of the blockade, he argues, have been overlooked. Some idea of the impact of the blockade can be gleaned from the Russian minister at Washington in 1813, who observed that 'it would be almost impossible to establish an armistice without raising the blockade, since the latter does them more harm than all the hostilities' (208).