The Dawn of Innovation by Charles R. Morris Read Free Book Online Page B

would cost another £10 million. The commercial community was strongly opposed to further taxes. They were moaning over the loss of their American markets and beginning to grasp how the war and years of blockades had been force-feeding American manufacturing.
    American and British negotiators had been meeting desultorily at Ghent since August. Each side had come to the meetings with lists of non-negotiable items, with the British especially obdurate and supercilious. After months of whittling away at each other’s demands, they finally agreed on Christmas Eve to drop all preconditions, cease hostilities, and refer any outstanding issues to commissions—in effect, to forget the whole thing.
    The climactic battles of New Orleans were fought in mid-January, and news of the great victory spread throughout the country within weeks. When news of the peace finally arrived on February 14, the public naturally assumed that New Orleans forced the British to quit, so the war ended on a high note. Across the Atlantic, the new disaster just reinforced the wisdom of getting out. Great Britain had spent two decades more or less continuously at war. The fulminations of the Times notwithstanding, a war of attrition against a major trading partner on a point of honor made no sense.
    By the time of the peace announcement, Chauncey had launched the New Orleans , even bigger than the St. Lawrence , although it was still being masted. A yet-unnamed companion first-rater was also being readied for the spring thaw, and the keel was laid down for another big frigate. Across the lake, Yeo was determinedly keeping pace, building another first-rater and apparently a third-rater (74).
    News of the peace also brought notice of Yeo’s recall. Since American roads were in decent shape, he decided to cross the lake and embark from
New York. Chauncey invited him to stop over at Sackets, and they spent more than a week together. One imagines they had much in common, including shared grievances on interservice rivalries.
    The dismantling of the lake’s naval establishments was underway by the end of February. The Americans sold off most of their gunboats and transport craft to commercial shippers, and both the Oneida and the Sylph had long careers as merchant vessels. Most of the rest of the warships were sold as scrap, and some were just left to rot. The hulk of the St. Lawrence was sold in 1832 for £25, on condition that it be removed from the lake. The New Orleans was planked over to preserve it and it sat on the beach until 1880, when it collapsed and was carted away.
    The controversies over the performance of the two lake commanders melted away with the war. With Europe at peace, British commands were scarce, but Yeo was given an independent command interdicting slavers; he died of yellow fever in 1818. Chauncey was appointed commodore of America’s second saltwater ship of the line, the USS Washington (74), and assumed command of the squadron in the Mediterranean. He spent another twenty-five years in the naval service.

    T HE SHIPBUILDERS’ WAR IS A MOSTLY FORGOTTEN SUBPLOT OF A NEARLY forgotten war. But it cast a long shadow. The apparent victory, as Americans saw it, was a huge boost for national morale. More substantively, the war effort and the associated British trade embargo were robust stimuli to the still-fledgling native textile and iron industries. Military uniforms, tents, and the like created a New England textile boom, while foundries turning out cannon and cannon balls, shot, ship ballast, and wagon and ship fittings proliferated in a ring from Pittsburgh through upper New York State and western Connecticut. Military procurement accelerated the commercialization of agriculture, and the war broke the British-Indian alliances in the old Northwest territories, hastening the pace of settlement.

    The war resolved a long-standing division over the importance of industry to the country’s safety and success. Even