Reviews 357 smaller portrait of 1786 – follows the text line regiments equipped with the prone-to- without any caption. misfire matchlock muskets. It may be helpful to readers to know that Derek ODDy the book has a strange notation system which LOnDOn is cumbersome to use. There are no superscript http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00253359.2014.932580 numbers in the text to indicate references, © Derek Oddy so that on finding a quotation or some point which invites further investigation, it is necessary to turn to the notes at the end of the The Challenge: Britain against America in the book. Looking up the page number should naval war of 1812 by Andrew Lambert produce a short title entry (or occasionally a Faber and Faber, London, 2012, £20 (hb) full title) to take the reader to the bibliography xiv+538 pages, black-and-white and colour which follows. However, in chapter 4, on p. 63 illustrations, bibliography and index et seq., some notes give only an author’s name, isbn 9780571273195 e.g. Frost; the reader will find seven works by that author in the bibliography but no further On 16 February 1815 the United States and guidance as to which one has been used! A Great Britain exchanged ratifications of the similar problem occurs in the same chapter, Treaty of Ghent which officially ended the War the notes for which contain ten references to of 1812. By most measures the 32-month-long the author McIntyre, though which of his two conflict had proven a disaster for the young works cited is unspecified. On the other hand, republic. With its military and diplomatic there are two entries in the index on p. 345 for objectives unrealized, its economy in tatters, and Gidley King and Philip Gidley King – one and its capital’s public buildings in ashes, how could the same person! anyone conclude otherwise? Yet that is not how Care also needs to be taken when reading Americans read the results of their ‘Second War those parts of the book which provide a for Independence’. They saw, instead, a heroic general background, as in some cases historical triumph over their British foe. Why Americans accuracy may be doubtful. While generally interpreted their wartime experience in this relying extensively upon published works to way and how this understanding shaped their provide circumstantial facts, the author does evolving national identity form the central include in that category the historical novels of themes of Andrew Lambert’s provocative new Patrick O’Brian and, for Phillip’s later life in book, The Challenge: America, Britain and the Bath, descriptions of society by Jane Austen. War of 1812. Phillip’s school life is viewed as that described a Lambert has written his account of the War century later by Charles Dickens. Eighteenth- of 1812 from a British perspective, focusing century London is characterized as the city of on how policy-makers at Whitehall and Royal James Boswell and Dr Johnson, while married Navy forces worldwide combined to answer life at Hampton Court is suggested to be the upstart American nation’s declaration of similar to ‘David Garrick’s world’. Lisbon, to war. He correctly sets this response within which Phillip sailed in 1774, is summarized the context of Britain’s grinding, two-decade- by a quotation from Rose Macaulay in 1946. long struggle against Revolutionary and The reader may be further led astray on p. 86 Napoleonic France. Framed in this way, where the author explains that ‘A fusilier was Lambert’s discussion of the maritime issues that a common private soldier and the lowest rank prompted the US declaration of war takes on of infantryman – the type that the Duke of an interesting twist, flipping the American casus Wellington would later describe as “the scum belli, ‘free trade and sailor’s rights’, on its head. of the earth”. .’ In fact, fusilier regiments in Thus in Lambert’s telling the War of 1812 was the eighteenth century were those equipped not the result of British violation of America’s with the newer lighter flintlock muskets or neutral rights but the consequence of the latter ‘fusils’ and regarded as specialist units having country’s refusal to respect Britain’s belligerent greater concentrated firepower than ordinary rights. 358 The Mariner’s Mirror If Anglo-French conflict helped bring on American public ignored such disparities and the War of 1812, it also defined the ways in later touted these three victories as evidence of which Britain could respond to this new threat US primacy at sea in the War of 1812. from across the Atlantic. Already engaged in a Lambert devotes three full chapters – nearly war for national existence against the empire a third of his text on the war at sea – to an of France, the British government had few in-depth examination of the remaining three resources to spare for the fight with America. frigate contests of the war. In these more The one instrument the Crown could wield to evenly matched engagements the Royal Navy advantage against the United States in 1812 was prevailed, adding three captured cruisers the Royal Navy. And it was the increasingly (including one of the vaunted American robust and aggressive application of sea power, heavy frigates) to the Navy List. In Lambert’s Lambert writes, which enabled Great Britain to judgment, it was the first of these victories, that thwart American ambitions and win the war. of HMS Shannon over the USS Chesapeake, While the Royal Navy fought US forces that was the most significant of the war for it in theatres ranging from the Great Lakes to destroyed the myth of the invincible Yankee America’s seaboard and the oceans beyond, frigate, quieted criticism of the navy’s overseas it is Lambert’s contention that Britain’s naval performance at home, and restored honour to a service delivered its most decisive, war-winning prideful service. blows on the high seas. It did so in three critical Ultimately it was the success of the Royal ways: by blockading the American coast, by Navy’s economic and naval blockade that protecting Britain’s floating trade, and by prompted the United States to seek a peace defeating the US Navy. As Lambert relates, settlement with the British government. In the Royal Navy faced considerable challenges Lambert’s reckoning, the status quo ante – administrative, logistical, operational – in treaty signed at Ghent on Christmas Eve 1814 obtaining each of these ends. The navy’s North represented a British victory because it made American Station commanders surmounted no concession on impressment or on maritime the worst of these difficulties with additional belligerent rights, the two issues the US had ships and men which were grudgingly supplied fought the war to overturn. But President James by the Admiralty. They devoted the majority Madison ignored this inconvenient truth and of this reinforcement to the economic and touted the treaty as a vindication of American naval blockade of the US. Over time British principles and the nation’s honour. With blockading squadrons managed to seize or shut peace restored, writes Lambert, the American up the vast percentage of America’s seaborne public forged a new reality out of its wartime traffic, depriving the US government of its experiences, one that highlighted the prowess most critical source of revenue to fund the of its navy while ignoring its defeats. The brave war. Royal Navy blockaders achieved similar exploits of the navy’s 1812 heroes, celebrated in success in capturing and confining to port print, art, and music, became ‘foundation myths American privateers and public warships, for an American culture’ (p. 449) that emerged thereby blunting the most significant threat to in the war’s aftermath, a culture that informed Britain’s own maritime commerce. American politics, diplomacy, and war making But the blockade is only one part of up to the Civil War. Lambert’s larger tale of how the Royal Navy For a variety of reasons, I suspect that defeated the US Navy in the War of 1812. American specialists will find more to criticize The other, more dramatic element of that than praise about The Challenge. For one story examines the war’s blue-water battles, thing, the author’s narrative has a decided in particular the six frigate duels that took anti-American tone to it. He seems to relish place between the rival navies. The US Navy delivering broadside after broadside of caustic triumphed in the first three of these sea fights, verbiage at American political and naval leaders. writes Lambert, because its frigates were more Such language does little to advance Lambert’s heavily built, armed, and manned than their analysis and leaves the author vulnerable to the British counterparts. But a proud and admiring charge that his book is more a partisan rather Reviews 359 than an objective and historical account of the and the war with Tripoli, where he was the War of 1812. first lieutenant on the Philadelphia when it ran For another, Lambert’s use of source aground and was captured in 1803. The highly materials covering the American side of the war regarded 32-year-old Porter was at his prime is disappointingly thin and fails to incorporate when the War of 1812 began. In command of some of the best scholarship now in print. As the frigate USS Essex, Porter captured a small a result, the author offers many strong judge- English warship and numerous prizes early in ments that lack the proper scholarly foundation the war. He returned to the United States to to support them.