James Madison . peaking of the latter ; and theonly importance he seems to have seen in themwas, that they excited some rage and jealousy in jEngland and moved her to increase her naval force. |How could Mr. Madison expect that the whole and ot a part only of the nation coiUd uphold an ad- |ministration which, after eighteen months of fight- \ing, could be reproached on the floor of Congress ]with not having launched a ship since the war wasbegun ? Or did he only choose to remember that jthe navy, which alone so far had brought eithersuccess or honor to the national arms, was the ere- \ation o
James Madison . peaking of the latter ; and theonly importance he seems to have seen in themwas, that they excited some rage and jealousy in jEngland and moved her to increase her naval force. |How could Mr. Madison expect that the whole and ot a part only of the nation coiUd uphold an ad- |ministration which, after eighteen months of fight- \ing, could be reproached on the floor of Congress ]with not having launched a ship since the war wasbegun ? Or did he only choose to remember that jthe navy, which alone so far had brought eithersuccess or honor to the national arms, was the ere- \ation of the Federalists in spite of the Jeffersonianpolicy ? It surely would have been wiser to try topropitiate New England, with which he was in per-petual worry and conflict, by enlisting it in a naval |war in which it had some faith. A large propor-tion of her people would have been glad to escapeidleness and poverty at home for service at sea,though they were reluctant to aid in a vain attemptto conquer >4 CONCLUSION 311 Even to that purpose, however, Massachusettscontributed, in the second campaign of 1814, morerecruits than any other single State ; and New Eng-land more than all the Southern States England could have given no stronger proofof her loyalty, if only Mr. Madison had knownhow to turn it to advantage. He was absolutelydeaf and blind to it; but his ears were quick tohear and his eyes to see, when he learned pre-sently that the New Englanders were seriously cal-culating the value of the Union under such ruleas they had had of late. It was not often that herelieved himself by intemperate language, but hecould not help saying now, in writing to GovernorNicholas of Virginia, that the greater part of thepeople in that quarter have been brought by theirleaders, aided by their priests, under a delusionscarcely exceeded by that recorded in the periodof witchcraft; and the leaders themselves are be-coming daily more desperate in the use they makeof it
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