England and the United States were on the brink of war. This final embargo was frankly intended as a preparation for war. It held American ships in our own ports and saved them from capture while a swift pilot schooner was sent to warn American merchantmen in northern Europe that hostilities impended and they must hasten home or lie up abroad in some neutral harbor. These signs and portents seemed to have escaped the notice of Captain Elijah Cobb. He was oddly unaware of it all, busied with selling his flour in Cadiz at a profit and buying British bills of exchange to reap more dollars. Congress had formally declared war, on June 18, while Captain Cobb was in the midst of his transactions. And when he sailed from Cadiz for Boston, on July 5, “he never felt himself saffer, on account of enemies on the high seas.” Peacefully he jogged across the Atlantic, as far as the Grand Bank, when he was overhauled by a British armed schooner. The subsequent proceedings must upset the conventional notions of the sea warfare of bygone days. All British seamen are presumed to have been ruffianly and outrageous persons. It will be noted that the interviews between Captain Cobb and his captors were conducted with courtesy and friendliness. The merchant skipper was pained and surprised to find that he had fallen into the enemy’s hands. The enemy endeavored to make it as comfortable as possible, trusting that Captain Cobb would “excuse their inquisitiveness.” You will find the dialogue vastly entertaining and not at all as the fictionist would fancy it. Mutual regrets and esteem, the prize politely ordered to St. Johns, the prisoners to be made as comfortable as possible under the circumstances! And then it is your pleasure to meet that fine old Port Admiral of St. Johns, Sir John Thomas Duckworth, who tried to make these unwilling visitors feel at home. “Supercargoes and Gentlemen passengers” were set at liberty. The display of gentlemanly feeling between sailor foemen was not unique in the annals of the War of 1812. England was well aware that the maritime interests of the New England coast were out of sympathy with the war and it was policy to avoid provoking them more than possible. “Organize a peace party throughout your Country,” resolved the Massachusetts House of Representatives, after war had been declared, “and let the sound of your disapprobation be loud and deep.” The climax came with the secretly seditious Hartford Convention. The Federalist opposition was stupidly blind to the fact that the war was a defensive struggle against the massed resources of the British Empire. The seafaring population, forgetting the national interests and suffering destruction and blockade, allowed the politicians to lead it by the nose.