However sound in principle these objections were, they seemed to declare perpetual war; for until England should be reduced to the position of Denmark or Prussia, she would not abandon in express terms either the right of impressment or that of blockade. The probable effect of a successful war waged on these grounds would give Canada and the Floridas to the United States as the consequence of aiding Napoleon to destroy European and English liberties. The Federalist clergy had little difficulty in convincing their congregations by such evidence that Madison was bound under secret engagements with Napoleon; and while Madison planted himself in the Napoleonic position of forcing war on a yielding people, the British officials in Canada stood on the defensive, avoided irritation, and encouraged trade and commerce. American merchant-vessels carried British passes; and most of them, to the anger of Napoleon, were freighted with supplies for the British army in Portugal and Spain. The attitude of England would have been magnificent in its repose had its dignity not been ruffled by the conduct of Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge, and by the privateers. While the New England Federalists, taking the attitude of patriots who strove only to avert impending ruin, made their profit of every new national disaster, and repressed as well as they could the indiscretions of their friends, the war party was not so well disciplined. Democracies in history always suffered from the necessity of uniting with much of the purest and best in human nature a mass of ignorance and brutality lying at the bottom of all societies. Although America was safe for the time from Old World ruin, no political or military error went so far to disgust respectable people with the war and its support, as an uprising of brutality which occurred in Baltimore. Within some twenty years this newest of American cities had gathered nearly fifty thousand inhabitants, among whom were many of the roughest characters in America, fit only for privateersmen or pirates, and familiar with both careers. On the other hand, the State of Maryland like the State of Delaware contained many conservatives, who showed their strength every four years by depriving the Republican candidate for the Presidency of some portion of the State’s electoral vote. Under their patronage a newspaper called “The Federal Republican” was published in Baltimore, edited by Jacob Wagner, who had been chief clerk of the State Department under Secretary Pickering, and was retained in that office by Secretary Madison until 1807, when he resigned the place and made use of his knowledge to attack Madison in the press. As an editor, Jacob Wagner belonged to the extreme wing of his party, and scrupled at nothing in the way of an assertion or a slander. His opposition to the war was bitter and unceasing, while the city of Baltimore shared in the feeling common in the South and