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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 488: DISPUTES WITH AMERICA.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

DISPUTES WITH AMERICA.

About this time the British government became involved in a contention with the United States of America. Soon after the commencement of hostilities with France, orders were issued for detaining American vessels freighted with corn for that country, and confiscating their cargoes, though at the same time paying both for them and their freight. The Americans were indignant at these orders, considering them to be an attack on their independence. Their complaints, however, were not only disregarded, but an order was afterwards issued to seize all American vessels carrying provisions and stores to the French colonies, and also to compel their ships sailing from the British islands to give security for landing their cargoes in British or neutral ports. In consequence of this measure,—vigorous, but necessary under existing circumstances,—more than six hundred American vessels were seized in the space of five months. Added to these causes of complaint there were others given to the United States by the occupation of some ceded forts on the frontiers of Canada, and by a conference which the governor, Lord Dorchester, held with some Indian tribes. By way of retaliation, the American government laid an embargo of thirty days on the British shipping in their ports, and appointed Mr. Jay, its minister, to compose the difference between the two countries. Mr. Jay delivered a memorial on the subject, and Pitt having tendered a conciliatory answer, and both parties being inclined to peace, the dispute was, for the time being, compromised. But on a future day it was productive of serious effects.