[Foster, Sir Augustus] / [Madison, James / Monroe, James / Sir Augustus Foster – War of 1812]

“Three messages, from the President of the United States [James Madison], to Congress, in November 1811, together with Documents accompanying the same”. Washington; printed 1811. [Including very interesting exchanges of letters between Foster and Monoe regarding “The Floridas” / Further printed correspondence on “List of Vessels Condemned” / “Letter by Lord J. Townshend to Mr. Croker on His Majesty’s ship ‘Eolus’ – Signed by Herbert Sawyer and Rear-Admiral H.W.Somerville” etc. etc.].

London, J.Hatchard, 1812. Octavo. 260 pages. Softcover / Original, publisher’s interim-wrappers in its very rare and pure original form, even with the original, publisher’s printed spine-label. Very good condition with some minor signs of wear only. Some minor signs of foxing. A publication of utmost rarity. With some interesting text-markings.

The material in this publication relates directly to the war of 1812; much of it is in the form of correspondence between Sir Augustus John Foster, H.M. Minister in America and James Monroe, Secretary of State under James Madison from 1811 to 1817. Other significant contributors include Mr. Pinkney and Lord Wellesley. Extremely scarce original edition. (No copy of the 1811 edition located [possibly never printed in bookform] / Not in COPAC or Sabin)]

[On 1 June 1812, President James Madison sent a message to Congress recounting American grievances against Great Britain, though not specifically calling for a declaration of war. The House of Representatives then deliberated for four days behind closed doors before voting 79 to 49 (61%) in favour of the first declaration of war. The Senate concurred in the declaration by a 19 to 13 (59%) vote in favour. The declaration focused mostly on maritime issues, especially involving British blockades, with two thirds of the indictment devoted to such impositions, initiated by Britain’s Orders in Council. The conflict began formally on 18 June 1812, when Madison signed the measure into law. He proclaimed it the next day, while it was not a formal declaration of war. This was the first time that the United States had declared war on another nation and the Congressional vote was the closest vote in American history to formally declare war. None of the 39 Federalists in Congress voted in favour of the war, while other critics referred to it as “Mr. Madison’s War”. Just days after war had been declared, a small number of Federalists in Baltimore were attacked for printing anti-war views in a newspaper, which eventually led to over a month of deadly rioting in the city.

Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated in London on 11 May and Lord Liverpool came to power. He wanted a more practical relationship with the United States. On June 23, he issued a repeal of the Orders in Council, but the United States was unaware of this, as it took three weeks for the news to cross the Atlantic. On 28 June 1812, HMS Colibri was despatched from Halifax to New York under a flag of truce. She anchored off Sandy Hook on July 9 and left three days later carrying a copy of the declaration of war, British ambassador to the United States, [Sir] Augustus Foster and consul Colonel Thomas Henry Barclay. She arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia eight days later. The news of the declaration took even longer to reach London.

British commander Isaac Brock in Upper Canada received the news much faster. He issued a proclamation alerting citizens to the state of war and urging all military personnel “to be vigilant in the discharge of their duty”, so as to prevent communication with the enemy and to arrest anyone suspected of helping the Americans. He also issued orders to the commander of the British post at Fort St. Joseph to initiate offensive operations against American forces in northern Michigan who were not yet aware of their own government’s declaration of war. The resulting Siege of Fort Mackinac on 17 July was the first major land engagement of the war and ended in an easy British victory (Wikipedia)].

The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was a conflict fought between the United States and its indigenous allies on one side, and the United Kingdom, its dependent colonies in North America, indigenous allies, and Spain on the other. The conflict formally began when the United States declared war on 18 June 1812, and officially ended with the Treaty of Ghent, which was signed on 24 December 1814. The Treaty of Ghent was signed by both American and British diplomats and also ratified by the British government in December 1814, but according to the terms of the treaty, peace did not take effect until the United States government also ratified it, which happened almost two months later on 17 February 1815.

The controversies that led to war centred on US national honour. They all included reference to the economic and trade disputes between the United States, United Kingdom, and France that first led to the Franco-American Quasi-War, and then to the Anglo-American War of 1812. Primary causes of the War of 1812 involved the Royal Navy stopping and seizing American ships on the open sea and impressing men as British subjects, including those with American citizenship certificates. Meanwhile, the British were outraged by the 1811 Little Belt affair. The British aided indigenous tribes of the Old Northwest to slow US citizen settlement on land ceded by the British to the US in the Anglo-American 1783 Treaty of Paris, and ceded by Indian tribes recognized by the British and Americans in the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, and in the 1803-04 Treaty of Vincennes. Starting in 1810, Britain urged and even armed Tecumseh’s confederacy to wage war on the American settlements that had been reaffirmed as US sovereign territory in the 1794 Jay’s Treaty.

The US Congress declared war with majorities in both its House and Senate as required in the Constitution of the United States. Though the votes were strictly along party lines, the Federalists were outvoted in every section of the country. Nevertheless, as the war dragged on without substantial American victory and a tightening British blockade, Federalists in New England convened a Hartford Convention to discuss their opposition to the War of 1812 in the United States as a minority party in a minority section. Unlike successful French diplomacy earlier that ended the Quasi War, the British could not avoid a declaration of war at the War of 1812. The change of Prime Minister brought a concession to avoid conflict, but it was too late.

The Royal Navy cut off maritime trade and allowed the British to raid the Atlantic coast at will. British initiated land offensives in the US Northwest Territory with Indian allies, and the Americans looked elsewhere for British vulnerability. The first American attempts to invade the Ontario Peninsula could not occupy any territory as the British had done in the US, nor were US troops ever successful in building a fort anywhere in Canada. The British and Indians defeated one initiative on US soil south of the treaty “middle” of the Great Lakes at the Siege of Detroit and a second US effort to cut off supplies to warring tribes at the Battle of Queenston Heights. In 1813, the United States won the Battle of Lake Erie, gaining control of the southern shore, and it defeated Tecumseh’s confederacy at the Battle of the Thames in its Old Northwest with 120 US Army and 3,500 militia auxiliaries from states and Indian allies. The victory recovered the eastern part of the Old Northwest from the British. However, the British defeated two American attempts to capture Montreal, the supply entrepôt for British allied Indians. An American invasion of the Niagara Peninsula to end the military supply to Indian proxies by Lake Erie achieved no decisive results. Another attempt in the summer of 1814 failed at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane.

The defeat of Napoleon in spring 1814 freed up British troops for use in North America. In August 1814, the British burned Washington (including the White House and the Capitol). The Americans then repulsed additional British raids on Baltimore, and New York, and the end of 1814 saw an end to British-American conflict to the north.

The Spanish–British Creek War broke out against American settlement into British-ceded territory in the U.S. Old Southwest. The Spanish-armed Red Stick Creek, who were also supported by the British-armed Tecumseh’s Confederacy were completely defeated at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814 on U.S. territory. During the five month long Gulf Campaign, General Jackson besieged the city of Pensacola in West Florida, which had been the principal British supply depot for their support of Indian allies attacking the American South during the Creek War. There a two-day battle ended in Spanish surrender.

In early 1815, United States forces decisively defeated an attacking British Army outside New Orleans, which was made up of veterans fresh from their European victories over Napoleon’s forces. News of the American victory arrived in Washington, D.C., at the same time as that of peace by the Treaty of Ghent. The peace was viewed as restoring American national honour, and as “the Hero of New Orleans”, American commanding General Andrew Jackson was catapulted to national celebrity, leading to his 1828 United States presidential election.

Anglo-American peace negotiations began in August 1814, and the Treaty of Ghent was unanimously ratified by the United States Senate on 17 February 1815. Britain returned all US citizens taken at sea whom it had claimed as British subjects; no US citizen was seized by the British empire thereafter. The treaty guaranteed Anglo-American Treaties with Indians within the U.S. as of 1811; the British subsequently ended all military assistance to tribes making war on U.S. soil. The Empire and U.S. territory was left status quo ante, establishing commissions to resolve disputed territory in the Great Lakes and Atlantic Ocean. Additionally an Anglo-American alliance began to entirely abolish “the Traffic in Slaves”, initiating a 200-year partnership with the U.S. Navy’s Africa Squadron joining alongside the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron patrols in the Bight of Benin. (Wikipedia)

• Keywords: American History – Rare · American President James Madison · American Presidential History · British – American Diplomacy 1812 · British Colonial Administration · Diplomatic History · Diplomatic Relations · Diplomats, British · Madison, James · Sir Augustus Foster · Sir Augustus Foster Collection · War of 1812 – Little Belt Affair · War of 1812 (America)
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 29989AB

EUR 4.500,-- 

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