Disaster followed disaster. General William Hull, dispatched to seize Canada, surrendered Detroit, hardly firing a shot. New England, which looked on Napoleon as the anti-Christ, and war with Britain as immoral, refused to call its militia into service. In Maine, oaths of loyalty were taken to George III. American warships won dramatic victories, but the British would emerge in 1815 with eight hundred vessels in the Royal Navy, while the United States ended the war with its first-line warships reduced to three.
