Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- MAP 1 The American Eastern Seaboard, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea
- MAP 2 Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River
- Abbreviations
- Note on US Dollar/Pound Sterling Conversion Rates
- Foreword
- Preface
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 CONVOYS AND BLOCKADES: The Evolution of Maritime Economic Warfare
- 2 WAR AT A DISTANCE: Constraints and Solutions
- 3 FROM BUSINESS PARTNERS TO ENEMIES: Britain and the United States before 1812
- 4 THE UNITED STATES BLOCKADED: Admiral Warren's ‘United Command’, August 1812–April 1814
- 5 BLOCKADES AND BLUNDERS: Vice-Admiral Cochrane's Command, April 1814–February 1815
- 6 TRADE AND WAR: The Effects of Warren's Blockades, August 1812–April 1814
- 7 CAPITAL AND CREDIT: The Impact of the Final Phase
- 8 RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
- EPILOGUE
- Appendix A: Maritime Tables
- Appendix B: Economic History Tables
- Notes to the Chapters
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - CONVOYS AND BLOCKADES: The Evolution of Maritime Economic Warfare
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- MAP 1 The American Eastern Seaboard, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea
- MAP 2 Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River
- Abbreviations
- Note on US Dollar/Pound Sterling Conversion Rates
- Foreword
- Preface
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 CONVOYS AND BLOCKADES: The Evolution of Maritime Economic Warfare
- 2 WAR AT A DISTANCE: Constraints and Solutions
- 3 FROM BUSINESS PARTNERS TO ENEMIES: Britain and the United States before 1812
- 4 THE UNITED STATES BLOCKADED: Admiral Warren's ‘United Command’, August 1812–April 1814
- 5 BLOCKADES AND BLUNDERS: Vice-Admiral Cochrane's Command, April 1814–February 1815
- 6 TRADE AND WAR: The Effects of Warren's Blockades, August 1812–April 1814
- 7 CAPITAL AND CREDIT: The Impact of the Final Phase
- 8 RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
- EPILOGUE
- Appendix A: Maritime Tables
- Appendix B: Economic History Tables
- Notes to the Chapters
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Fleets employed to cover a coast, are not only precarious in their exertions, which depend much upon winds, but are miserably confined as to all the effects of naval war. Those effects are only felt when our fleets can keep the sea to protect our commerce and annoy that of our enemies, as well as to defend our distant possessions, and to cover descents and continued incursions.
(Wm Eden, MP, Commissioner for Conciliation with America, 1778–9)BY THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY maritime blockade was the offensive arm of economic warfare, used against an enemy in conjunction with the convoy protection of a nation's own overseas trade. The term ‘offensive blockade’ was used to describe the interception of an enemy's merchant, transport or naval vessels, usually on their entering or leaving harbour. Defensive economic warfare involved the gathering of merchant vessels to sail as convoys under the armed protection of as many warships as could be spared. Belligerents with sufficient naval means were increasingly expected to impose a policy of ‘stop and search’ on all vessels found in specified areas, and those carrying goods ‘interdicted’ by proclamation as ‘contraband’ were at best turned back or, otherwise, detained. Crews and cargoes thought likely to benefit an enemy were either subject to an enforced sale or, subject to law, confiscated. At the beginning of each European war legislation was needed to legitimise what otherwise would have constituted piracy, a practice almost universally condemned but nonetheless still carried out in some parts of the world.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- How Britain Won the War of 1812The Royal Navy's Blockades of the United States, 1812-1815, pp. 6 - 26Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011