The British naval force all told consisted of over a thousand sail and her sailors were flushed with the remembrances of Aboukir and Trafalgar. Before hostilities and at the date of the declaration of war, there were off our coast the _Africa_, one sixty-four gun-ship; the _Shannon_, _Guerriere_, _Belvidera_, and _Eolus_, second class frigates; besides several smaller vessels. The war with Great Britain, our “second war for independence” was declared when the treasury was empty and the cabinet divided. Some pamphleteers stigmatized it as “Mr. Madison’s war.” So great was the cowardly fear of British invincibility on the seas, and so shameful and unjust were the suspicions against our navy that many counsellors at Washington urged that the national vessels should keep within tide-water and act only as harbor batteries. To the earnest personal remonstrance of Captains Bainbridge and Stewart we owe it that our vessels got to sea to win a glory imperishable. Borrowing a point from the English who, in older days, usually chose their time to declare war when the richly-laden Dutch galleons were on their homeward voyage from the Indies, President Madison and Congress, hoping to fill the depleted treasury, passed the act declarative of war about the time the Jamaica plate fleet of eighty-five vessels was to arrive off our coast. This sailed from Negril Bay on the 20th of May and war against Great Britain was declared on the 12th of June, at least one week too late. ----- [2] Roosevelt’s “Naval History of the War of 1812.” CHAPTER V. SERVICE IN THE WAR OF 1812. IN these days of submarine cables, the European armies in South Africa or Cochin China receive orders from London or Paris on the day of their issue. To us, the tardiness of transmission in Perry’s youth, seems incredible. Although war was declared on the 12th of June, official information did not reach the army officers until June 20th, and the naval commanders until the 21st. In Perry’s diary of June 20th 1812, this entry is made: “At 10 A. M. news arrived that war would be declared the following day against G. B. Made the signal for all officers and boats. Unmoored ship and fired a salute.” At 3.30 P. M. next day, within sixty minutes of the arrival of the news, the squadron, consisting of the _President_, _United States_, _Congress_, _Argus_, and _Hornet_, about one-third of the whole sea-worthy naval force of the nation, moved out into the ocean.