ABSTRACT
So important was the war of 1812 in the history of the United States, so much is made of it in the American textbooks, that it is only on second thought that an American remembers that to Great Britain it was but an episode. She was engaged at that time in a life-and-death struggle with Napoleon; she could give comparatively little thought or attention to a fight with what was then a relatively unimportant Power. So in the English school histories little space is given to this second war with America. "In 1812 the United States engaged in the most purposeless war known to history. Britain, during the last years of her long struggle with Napoleon, required every fighting seaman she could find, and so claimed the right of seizing on the high seas native-born British subjects who, to avoid service, had become American citizens".
