It seems singular that on the heels of the splendid successes of the navy before Tripoli and with the rest of the Barbary powers, the government and the people showed very little understanding of the value of the naval service. As soon as hostilities were over with the corsairs, a reduction of the navy took place, although at that very time aggressions of Great Britain upon American merchant ships were continuing at a rate which was bound to provoke war in the end. Bainbridge, like many others, found himself without a ship, and on half-pay; and he asked and obtained leave, during the intervals when he was without a naval command, to make voyages in the merchant service. He was absent on one of these voyages for profit in the autumn of 1811, when at St. Petersburg he heard of the probability of a declaration of war with Great Britain. He started instantly on his return to the United States, and reached Washington in February, 1812. He found there one of Commodore Preble's captains, Charles Stewart,[3] and to his rage and mortification was told that the government thought it vain and foolhardy to give battle on the sea to the mightiest naval power on earth, which had then vanquished the navies of Europe and kept them skulking in their own harbors. Such over-prudence ill suited the ardent and determined natures of Bainbridge and Stewart. They heard that the government had concluded to lay up such ships as it had, and to prosecute the fight entirely on land. They went together to President Madison, and besought him to change this cowardly and unwise policy, and succeeded in persuading him to do it. For this one act the country is forever indebted to Bainbridge and Stewart. While nothing could eventually stop the progress of the United States toward being a great and powerful nation, yet, had it not been for the victories gained at sea during the War of 1812-15, the dignity and prestige of the United States would have suffered an eclipse for fifty years. The success of the Americans in the ship duels on the ocean during the war of 1812 did more to make the United States respected abroad than any event of our history after the Revolution. The great question of the right of search in neutral vessels was settled by the achievements of a few smart vessels with great and daring captains, belonging to a young and hitherto feeble power in America,--a right which had been vainly contested by all the powers of Europe. The British navy had been for more than a hundred years practically invincible, and there can be no doubt that many of its earlier losses in 1812-15 came from absolute rashness, fostered by a long and glorious career of conquest. What was of more value to the United States than the respect of continental Europe was the respect earned from the English themselves. The United States of 1812 was chiefly populated by those only a few generations from an English ancestry, and the people of the two countries were