Naemanson, you didn't have green cards then. So quite a few British merchant sailors took the opportunity to swear before an American Justice that they were Americans and so got a paper that they hoped would save them from impressment. Also there were a number of cases of British sailore deserting to American ships, who refused to hand them back.

I'm not defending impressment. In my home town there were cases of women attacking the press gang to get their husbands back. But it wasn't piracy.

It's a good point about Maine, though. Apparantly there were quite a few British sympathisers up there that worked out a good deal with their enemies. Loyalists, I think they were called. God knows why!

Didn't they try to smooth out the Maine border out at that time? What was all that about?

Little Hawk - by the time of the Battle of New Orleans we had already finished the big war with Napoleon (and we hadn't started the little one yet) so the British troops were largely veterans of that conflict. The trouble was that the generals were all second division ones. The good ones didn't want to get involved in a litte war with a minor nation!

Les from Hull (not the one in Canada and nothing to do with the Commodore of that name).