These craft were a pet notion of Jefferson.

"Believing, myself," he said of them, "that gunboats are the only water defense which can be useful to us and protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy, I am pleased with everything which promises to improve them." A nation of eight million people, unready, blundering, rent by internal dissension, had resolved to challenge an England hardened by war and tremendously superior in military resources.

It was not all madness, however, for the vast empire of Canada lay exposed to invasion, and in this quarter the enemy was singularly vulnerable.

Henry Clay spoke for most of his countrymen beyond the boundaries of New England when he announced to Congress: "The conquest of Canada is in your power.

I trust that I shall not be deemed presumptuous when I state that I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet.