While an American fishing-smack was thus capturing a British sloop-of-war in the harbor of New York, on the other side of the ocean the London _Evening Star_ was just saying: "The American navy must be annihilated; her arsenals and dockyards consumed. The American merchant-vessels ought perhaps to be permitted to arm against the pirates of the Mediterranean or the Ladrones of China; but, like certain places of entertainment in England, they ought to be compelled to exhibit in large letters, on their main-sails, _Licensed to carry guns, pursuant to a British act of Parliament._" CHAPTER XIII. PEACE NEGOTIATIONS.--CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CREEKS. {223} _Condition of Affairs at the Opening of the Third Year--Congressional Appropriations--Russian Offers of Mediation--Jackson's Preparations--Battles of Emucfau, Enotachopco, and Horseshoe Bend._ |At the beginning of the third year of the war the prospects of the Americans were more discouraging than at any previous period. The European wars had come to an end for the time, Napoleon having been overthrown at Leipsic, and Great Britain, with an immense navy and an abundance of veteran troops, was at liberty to turn her entire attention upon the enemy across the Atlantic. Indeed, her fleet on our coast had been gradually increasing for several months, and Admirals Warren and Cockburn had shown a determination not to confine their operations to combats of vessel with vessel, but wherever practicable to send a force ashore to harass the people, burn their homes, and carry off their movable property. Harrison's victory was almost the only achievement of the American land forces worth mentioning. The little navy was as gallant as ever, and had suffered no defeat in {224}anything like an equal fight, except in the case of the _Chesapeake_; but now it seemed likely to be overwhelmed by a power that could send against it a thousand war-ships. Two powerful ones had already been sent for the special purpose of capturing one of our cruisers, the _Essex_, with orders to follow her wherever she went, and take her at all hazards. The operations of the privateers had struck the English nation in its most tender spot, the pocket, and roused it to a furious determination for vengeance; while the London journals were boldly talking of schemes for using the opportunity to cut off various slices of our territory.