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David Parish Parish brokered a $7.5 million loan to the cash-strapped Republican Congress in 1813 to continue prosecuting the war. Congress was unwilling to raise taxes to fund the unpopular war. This loan allowed Parish the political power to halt military operations in the St. Lawrence Valley. Despite the strategic military importance of this front, the US made only one half-hearted and disastrous attempt, in November 1813, to use it as an invasion corridor to attack Montreal and cut off the supply route to British forces in Upper Canada. The rest of the time, American and British interests continued their thriving cross border trade and generally peaceful relations as if there were no war between their countries. After the loan US military operations on land continued to be in the strategically unimportant Niagara Peninsula. In this case, a single civilian controlled American military operations for 1/3 of the US fronts facing Canada. This relaxed attitude may also have resulted in the unprepared state of the army when the British attacked Plattsburg in 1814.
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