1. The United States government had hardly any military resources with which to fight a major war.
2. The British ranked as the world's greatest maritime power, but the U.S. Navy did not possess a single ship of the line, as battleships of the day were called. The Americans had only eight frigates and eight smaller seaworthy warships.
3. The government had made no naval measures along the most strategically significant of the waterways bordering Canada-Lakes Champlain, Ontario, and Erie.
