When it came to this second war with England, although the United States now proved herself a nation, there was no unanimity of opinion among the people; and as a fact the Americans had been nearly as indignant with their own government for its embargoes as with England and France for their unjust decrees and their seizure of American seamen and ships. Politics seethed hot in New England as elsewhere, and men for or against the war wrangled in high place and low. The majority on the Cape were anti-war. Chatham, remembering old wars and fresh wrongs, addressed the President expressing “the abhorrence of the people to any alliance with France.” Other towns were, at best, lukewarm. Yarmouth never ceased to be bitterly anti-war, and many who had fought devotedly in the Revolution refused to fight now, or only so far as it might be necessary to prevent the invasion of their soil. Yet the county was strongly Federalist, and a powerful minority were able to push through a fine resolution: “It becomes us, in imitation of the patriots of the Revolution, to unite in the common cause of the country, patiently bearing every evil, and cheerfully submitting to those privations which are necessarily incident to a state of war. We consider the war in which we are engaged as just, necessary and unavoidable, and we will support the same with our lives and fortunes.” The fine old breed of American seamen flocked into the navy, and success on the ocean did much to offset reverses on land. During the first seven months of the war, five hundred British merchantmen were taken; and the Essex, the Constitution, the Wasp had made their kill of English men-of-war. In 1814 Great Britain, relieved from the pressure of continental wars, was ready to turn her full attention to America, Washington was burned, and again a British fleet rendezvoused in Provincetown Harbor and harried the coast of the Cape. A landing party at Wood’s Hole was driven off by the militia; Falmouth, after due notice to remove non-combatants, was bombarded, with considerable loss to buildings and salt-works, but none to life. The contention had been that Falmouth had been annoying British ships with her cannon which Captain Weston Jenkins, the Yankee commander, had thereupon dared the British to come and get. The determined attitude of his militia seems to have discouraged any landing and the British withdrew without their cannon. Several months later Falmouth was to have her revenge. Captain Jenkins, with thirty-two volunteers, set sail in the sloop Two Friends for Tarpaulin Cove, Wood’s Hole, where H.M.S. Retaliation lay at anchor. Brought to by a shot from the ship, Jenkins concealed all but two or three of his men to encourage a boarding party of the enemy. This it was easy to overcome; whereupon he trained his guns upon the ship, overcame all resistance, and returned in triumph to Falmouth with the Retaliation, its crew of twelve men, its plunder, and two Yankee prisoners.