While the rest of the country remembered the Chesapeake affair and stored up resentment against Britain, maritime New England directed its anger at Jefferson and his party. In New England scores of prosperous shipowners were ruined, and a number of thriving little seaports suffered an economic depression from which few recovered.
Instead he decided to clamp an embargo on American trade. This was an insult to the flag, and had Jefferson chosen to go to war with England he would have had considerable support. When a British naval vessel in June 1807 attacked and disabled the USS Chesapeake and impressed several members of the crew, a general wave of indignation rose in which even the maritime interests joined. To the country at large the seizure of American seamen was much more serious than the loss of a few hogsheads of flour or molasses. Impressment, on the other hand, presented no such financial hardship to the shipowners, whatever the consequences for the unfortunate seamen, and the maritime interests tended to minimize it. In the latter case the maritime interests of the eastern seaboard protested vigorously and demanded naval protection, but rather than risk having their highly profitable trade cut off by war with England they were willing to take an occasional loss of cargo. The reaction in the United States to impressment differed from that aroused by the seizure of ships and cargoes. The pretext for impressment was the search for deserters, who, the British claimed, had taken employment on American vessels. The second, more insulting, type of outrage was the capture of men from American vessels for forced service in the Royal Navy. Although France had declared a counter blockade of the British Isles and had seized American ships, England was the chief offender because its Navy had greater command of the seas. One was the seizure and forced sale of merchant ships and their cargoes for allegedly violating the British blockade of Europe.
The British outrages at sea took two distinct forms. The immediate origins of the war were seizure of American ships, insults and injuries to American seamen by the British Navy, and rapid expansion of the American frontier.
The United States entered the war with confused objectives and divided loyalties and made peace without settling any of the issues that had induced the nation to go to war. But to the Americans it was neither simple nor clear. To the Canadians it was clearly a case of naked American aggression. To Great Britain the War of I8I2 was simply a burdensome adjunct of its greater struggle against Napoleonic France. Extracted frp, American Military History, Army Historical Series
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