Little Hawk wrote, "It was the War of 1812 I was talking about. The one where the USA tried to invade Canada several times. Nobody exactly won that one in a decisive sense...it just eventually petered out..."

Actually there was a winner. It was the economies of Eastport and southern New Brunswick. During the embargo and the blockade Eastport, Maine, was the busiest port in the USA. The accounts I've read describe the regular "discovery" of abandoned, fully loaded schooners in the seas off Eastport. The schooners would be taken into port and unloaded and the goods would be carried down the coast by ox cart. The newspapers took to announcing the arrivals of these carts just as they used to announce the arrivals of ships in the pre-embargo days.

By the way, the harbors of the US were closed BEFORE the War of 1812 by presidential decree when Monroe(?) declared an embargo to protect American sailors from the depredations of the piratical British Navy.

And, by the way, we let the British burn the White House. We didn't like the decor. It used to be the Puce House.