Originally Posted by BigBert96

RedCoat, you said we gained nothing from war of 1812. I must correct you. THE MAIN REASON we fought was because the English constantly were impressing our sailors on the high seas. After the war was ended, the impressment ceased. We won what we sought, freedom from english piracy on the high seas. So how did we gain nothing?

Simple, read the peace treaty. No mention is made of impressment or the rights of neutral shipping.
Impressment stopped for two reasons.
Firstly Britain had agreed to stop impressment 3 weeks before the US declared war on Britain. The fact that the US decided to continue with the war after they found out, even though no action had yet taken place, tends to make us British think that perhaps the conquest of Canada had more to do with the War of 1812 than you Americans like to admit.
Secondly, by the end of the War of 1812 Britain was no longer at war with France. The RN was being 'downsized' to save money, there was no longer any need to impress or even press-gang anybody

if you look deeper the British did not see the impressment of US seamen as impressment of forgieners. They saw it as impressment of subjects to the Crown,
The U.S. still considered by the Crown to be colonies in rebellion for the most part. What we gained was recognition as a sovergion nation.

No, Britain recognized the US as a sovereign nation at the Treaty of Paris after the AWI.
The British only impressed sailors who they believed had been born in Britain or had already served in the RN. Any sailor who could prove he was American born was released( and a number were)
What the British didn't recognize was the right of a person to change his nationality( this was a grey area in international politics at the time), not the sovereignty of the US as such.

The fact that impressing of American sailors occurred was bad enough. But would the UK have held to its agreement to cease impressing Americans into their navy? By the fact that it happened to begin with, we see that they had very little respect for the United States. I doubt that they would have changed their attitude had the War of 1812 not occurred.

Originally Posted by godofthunder9010

The fact that impressing of American sailors occurred was bad enough. But would the UK have held to its agreement to cease impressing Americans into their navy? By the fact that it happened to begin with, we see that they had very little respect for the United States. I doubt that they would have changed their attitude had the War of 1812 not occurred.

After the war with France had ended, what their attitude was didn't matter, they didn't need them
So even if the US had not declared war on Britain, impressment would have stopped at the end of 1814 by the latest anyway

Didn't need them ... until some other time and some other war, at which point (assuming the War of 1812 hadn't happened at all) they would had no qualms whatsoever at reinstituting the practice.

And if it had happend sometime else instead of 1812 thier is a chance America may have not won for different reasons. However that is one o the major reasons we went to war aginast Britian.

A good point was brought up...that the US was concerned more about the northwestern border between the US and Canada than impressment. I do not doubt this to be true. Expansionism was, since early colonial times, a primary objective.
Patrick

Additionally, there was some disagreement as to where the Northwestern Border truly was. Though it tends to be downplayed or forgotten altogether, this was one of the things that was more clearly defined in the in the peace negotiations.

Also at that time British still had some bases in America, all out west.

Originally Posted by Dameon

Also at that time British still had some bases in America, all out west.

Not in US territory they didn't