lyric "The Star-spangled Banner" was written, the author being detained on board the cartel-ship Minden during the bombardment. Before this there had been various depredations and skirmishes along the coast of Maine and a courageous repulse of the British at Stonington, Connecticut. Afterwards came the well-fought battle of Lundy's Lane and the closing victory of New Orleans, fought after the treaty of peace had been actually signed, and unexpectedly leaving the final laurels of the war in the hands of the Americans.

After this battle an English officer visiting the field saw within a few hundred yards "nearly a thousand bodies, all arrayed in British uniforms," and heard from the American officer in command the statement that the American loss had consisted only of eight men killed and fourteen wounded. The loss of the English was nearly twenty-one hundred in killed and wounded, including two general officers. A triumph so overwhelming restored some feeling of military self-respect, sorely needed after the disaster at Washington. "There were," says the Federalist William Sullivan, "splendid processions, bonfires, and illuminations, as though the independence of the country had been a second time achieved." Such, indeed, was the feeling, and with some reason. Franklin's war for independence was at an end. The battle took place January 8, 1815, but the treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent on the day before Christmas. The terms agreed upon said not one word about impressment or the right of search, but the question had been practically settled by the naval successes of the United States; and so great were the rejoicings on the return of peace that even

this singular omission seemed of secondary impor

tance.

The verdict of posterity upon the war of 1812 may be said to be this: that there was ample ground for it, and that it completed the work of the Revolution; and yet that it was the immediate product of a few ambitious men, whose aims and principles were not really so high as were those of many who opposed the war. The outrageous impressment of American seamen touched a point of national pride, and justly; while the United States submitted to this it certainly could not be called an independent nation; and the abuse was in fact ended by the war, even though the treaty of peace was silent. On the other side, the dread entertained of Napoleon by the Federalists was perfectly legitimate; and this, too, time has justified. But this peril was really far less pressing than the other: the United States needed more to be liberated from the domineering attitude of England than from the remoter tyranny of Napoleon, and it was therefore necessary to reckon with England first. In point of fact, the Federalists did their duty in action; the commonwealth of Massachusetts furnished during those three years more soldiers than any other; and the New England States, which opposed the war, sent more men into the field than the Southern States, which brought on the contest. Unfortunately the world remembers words better than actions-littera scripta manet-and the few questionable phrases of the Hartford Convention are now more familiar in memory than the fourteen thousand men whom Massachusetts raised in 1814 or the two millions of dollars she paid for bounties.

The rest of Madison's administration was a career

of peace. Louisiana had long since (April 30, 1812) become a State of the Union, and Indiana was also admitted (December 11, 1816). An act was passed under the leadership of Lowndes, of South Carolina, providing for the payment, in instalments of ten millions of dollars annually, of the national debt of one hundred and twenty millions. Taxes were reduced, the tariff was slightly increased, and in April, 1816, a second national bank was chartered for a term of twenty years. Here, as in some other matters, at least one of the parties proved to have changed ground, and the Democratic Republican newspapers began eagerly to reprint Hamilton's arguments for a bank -arguments which they had formerly denounced and derided. To the Federalists the passage of the bank act was a complete triumph, and, while their own party disappeared, they could feel that some of its principles survived. A national bank was their policy, not that of Jefferson; and Jefferson and Madison had, moreover, lived to take up those theories of a strong national government which they had formerly called monarchical and despotic. The Federalists had, indeed, come equally near to embracing the extreme State - rights doctrines which their opponents had laid down; but the laws of physical perspective seem to be reversed in moral perspective, so that our own change of position seems to us insignificant, while an equal change on the other side looks conspicuous and important. Be this as it may, Madison's administration closed in peace, partly the peace of good-nature, partly of fatigue. The usual nominations were made for the Presidency by the Congressional caucuses, but when it came to the voting it was almost all one way. The only States choos