Excerpt from The Boys of 1812 and Other Naval HeroesAs we look back upon it now, it is wonderful to think what a daring thing it was for this small and Scattered people, living in their little towns along the seacoast from Maine to Georgia, or on farms and plantations in the country, without an army or navy, without generals, and above all without money, - for money is needed to carry on war more than almost anything else, - to have thus made up their minds to stand up bravely and manfully against such a power as Great Britain (one of the greatest in the world). With all her troops and ships and immense revenues. That we should have come out successfully from a contest SO unequal seems little short of marvellous, and we cannot but think that it was the hand Of an overruling Destiny that enabled us to succeed, by giving us a general as skilful and prudent as Washington, statesmen as Wise as Franklin and Jefferson and Adams, an enemy as indolent as Sir William Howe, and allies as powerful as our good friends the French.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.