Firstly, the right was one belonging to all nations by international law; secondly, though it was at once relinquished by Britain in a conciliatory spirit, the Americans persisted in their campaign; thirdly, at the close of the war they did not insist at all on the abrogation of the Right of Search, in the treaty of peace. It would be much easier to show what the real causes were:-(1), hatred of England, lasting over from the Revolution; (2), envy of her commerce and prestige; and especially (3) the scheme for the conquest of Canada. The course of the negotiations exhibit a thoroughly ungenerous course on the part of the American authorities, contrasted with a desire not to offend on the part of Britain. President Madison's Declaration of War was made on the 18th of June, 1812, and the British Government, after using every honorable overture for friendship, only issued theirs in October, couching it, besides, in terms of regret and reproach at the unfairness in which Madison's party persisted. Owing to that unfairness and other causes the enterprise also was by no means unanimously popular in the States. A convention of delegates from the counties of New York, held in the capitol at Albany, on the 17th and 18th of September, and called the New York Convention, condemned Madison's party for declaring the war, on account of its injustice, and "as having been undertaken," they said, "from motives entirely distinct from those which have been hitherto avowed." The New England States treated it coldly. Maryland disapproved through her Legislature. Many persons everywhere looked on it as a mere political scheme, and when drafted for service in frequent cases bought themselves substitutes. It was soon found that a mistake had been made in attacking Canada. That happened which might be expected where bodies of men with inflated ideas of glory and no experience attack men fighting desperately for their homes, and officers and veterans who had seen such service as the Napoleonic wars. The British, with an astuteness which is oftener the character credited to their opponents, managed to get earliest word of the Declaration sent to their own forts on the Lakes, and promptly captured the American fort Michilimackinac. They then followed with the daring capture of the stronghold of Detroit, amply equipped and garrisoned, by a little handful of men under the heroic General Brock, who simply went before it and demanded its surrender, whereupon it was given up, together with the whole Territory of Michigan. The presence of such trained British officers as Brock and of army veterans in the ranks was a very great advantage. Poor Brock soon afterwards died in his memorable charge at the victory of Queenston Heights.