by land or sea, within the actual theatre of war, the united grand total reaches seven hundred thousand.  This was most unevenly divided between the two opponents.  The Americans had about 575,000, the British about 125,000.  But such a striking difference in numbers was matched by an equally striking difference in discipline and training.  The Americans had more than four times as many men.  The British had more than four times as much discipline and training.

The forces on the American side were a small navy and a swarm of privateers, a small regular army, a few ‘volunteers,’ still fewer ‘rangers,’ and a vast conglomeration of raw militia.  The British had a detachment from the greatest navy in the world, a very small ‘Provincial Marine’ on the Lakes and the St Lawrence, besides various little subsidiary services afloat, including privateers.  Their army consisted of a very small but latterly much increased contingent of Imperial regulars, a few Canadian regulars, more Canadian militia, and a very few Indians.  Let us pass all these forces in review.

The American Navy.  During the Revolution the infant Navy had begun a career of brilliant promise; and Paul Jones had been a name to conjure with.  British belittlement deprived him of his proper place in history; but he was really the founder of the regular Navy that fought so gallantly in ‘1812.’  A tradition had been created and a service had been formed.  Political opinion, however, discouraged proper growth.  President Jefferson laid down the Democratic party’s idea of naval policy in his first Inaugural.  ’Beyond the small force which will probably be wanted for actual service in the Mediterranean, whatever annual sum you may think proper to appropriate to naval preparations would perhaps be better employed in providing those articles which may be kept without waste or consumption, and be in readiness when any exigence calls them into use.  Progress has been made in providing materials for 74-gun ships.’ [Footnote:  A ship-of the-line, meaning a battleship or man-of war strong enough to take a position in the line of battle, was of a different minimum size at different periods.  The tendency towards increase of size existed a century ago as well as to-day.  ‘Fourth-rates,’ of 50 and 60 guns, dropped out of the line at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War.  In 1812 the 74-gun three-decker was the smallest man-of-war regularly used in the line of battle.] This ‘progress’ had been made in 1801.  But in 1812, when Jefferson’s disciple, Madison, formally declared war, not a single keel had been laid.  Meanwhile, another idea of naval policy had been worked out into the ridiculous gunboat system.  In 1807, during the crisis which followed the Berlin Decree, the Orders-in-Council, and the Chesapeake affair, Jefferson wrote to Thomas Paine:  ’Believing, myself; that gunboats are the only water defence which can be useful to us, and protect us from the ruinous folly of a