Under the order of November 6, some hundreds of American ships were seized and brought into West Indian ports by British cruisers. [305] The application of the order to them was, however, liable to two serious objections, even admitting the principle. In the first place, it was made without warning, under a rule that was at least not generally accepted; and in the second place, the trade between the French West India Islands and the United States had been permitted, before the war, in vessels of sixty tons and upwards. [306] In the year ending September 30, 1790, fifty-seven thousand tons of American shipping entered home ports from the French colonies. The trade, therefore, was one that existed prior to the war, and so did not come under the rule of 1756. [307] The order of November 6 was not made public until nearly the end of the year; the United States minister in London not receiving a copy until Christmas Day. He hastened at once to protest, but before he could obtain an audience a second was issued, January 8, 1794, revoking the former and limiting the operations of the rule to vessels bound from the colonies direct to Europe. Although the principle was maintained by the new order, and not admitted by the United States, still, as their own trade was excepted, much dissatisfaction was removed.

The serious nature of the difficulties that had already arisen determined the government to send an extraordinary envoy to England. John Jay was nominated to this office, and reached London in June, 1794. The British government, having already receded from its first position, as well as revoked the order of June 8, 1793, for the seizure of provisions, found no difficulty in assuming a conciliatory attitude. The result of Jay's mission was a treaty of Commerce and Navigation, concluded November 19, 1794, the first contracted between the two countries since the separation. The injuries done to American commerce, under the orders of November 6, were to be submitted to a joint commission. The report of the latter was not made until 1804, but by it compensation was made for most of the seizures; and it was claimed in the following year by Mr. Monroe, then envoy in London, that the decision of the commission definitely disposed of the principle of the Rule of 1756. It does not appear, however, that its power extended further than the settlement of the cases. There, its decision was to be final; but it had no power to commit either government to any general principle of international law not otherwise established. [308] The Rule of 1756 was not mentioned in the treaty, and the failure to do so may be construed as a tacit acquiescence, or at least submission, on the part of the United States. [309] On the other hand, considerable commercial advantages were obtained. Great Britain conceded to American ships the privilege of direct trade between their own country and the British East and West Indies, but they were precluded from carrying the produce of those colonies to other foreign ports. Indeed, so great was the anxiety of the British ministers to prevent coffee and sugar from being taken to Europe, indirectly, by neutral ships, that they insisted upon, and Jay admitted, a stipulation that while the trade with the British West Indies was permitted, the United States would not allow the carrying of any molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, or cotton in American vessels to any other part of the world than to the United States. This would have stopped a profitable trade already open to American merchants, who first imported, and then re-exported to France, the produce of the French islands; the broken voyage being considered to purge the origin of the commodities. This article (the twelfth) was accordingly rejected by the Senate, and only as thus modified was the treaty ratified by both powers.

The French government had viewed with distrust the negotiation between Great Britain and the United States. Although assured by Mr. Jay, through the American minister at Paris, that the treaty contained an express stipulation guarding the existing conventions between France and his own country, the Directory had the insolence to demand a copy of the instrument, to which it considered itself entitled, although it had not yet been communicated to the United States government. When the terms finally became known, its indignation passed bounds. The principal points to which it took exception were two, wherein the United States admitted conditions favoring the interests of belligerents relatively to neutrals, and against which the chief efforts of the weaker maritime states had been addressed. The first of these was the well-settled principle that a neutral ship did not protect property belonging to an enemy, laden on board it. The United States had always admitted this as valid, while trying to introduce, as an innovation, the contrary rule. In the treaty of 1778 with France, the two countries had stipulated that in any future war in which one of them should be engaged the belligerent should respect his enemy's property, if under the flag of the other party to the compact; but the United States did not think that this agreement between two nations overturned for all others a settled usage. The interests of Great Britain indisposed her to accept the proposed change, and the old principle was explicitly accepted in the seventeenth article of Jay's treaty. The other point objected to by France referred to the definitions of contraband of war. This has always been, and still is, one of the most difficult problems of international law; for an article may be of the first importance in the wars of one age or one country, and of slight consequence in another century or a different scene. By Jay's treaty the United States allowed that naval stores were, and under some circumstances provisions might be, contraband of war, and therefore liable to seizure. A free trade in these articles was of great importance to the Americans; but they were weak then, as in a military sense they, with far less excuse, are now; and then, as now, they must submit in questions of doubtful right. The material interests of United States citizens, as distinguished from the national self-respect, were in part saved by Great Britain undertaking to pay for provisions when seized as contraband. All these conditions bore against the wishes of the French, who regarded the Americans as owing an undischarged debt of gratitude to them for the scanty, though certainly most important, aid extended in the Revolutionary struggle by the monarch whom his people had since beheaded; and from this time the arrogance with which the French government had treated that of the United States became tinged with acrimony. It refused to see the difficulties and weakness of the new and still scarcely cemented body of states; or that, indirectly, the bargain struck by the latter was upon the whole as advantageous to France herself as could be expected, when Great Britain had an absolute control over the sea and all that floated upon it. To imperious rebukes and reproaches succeeded a series of measures, outraging neutral and treaty rights, which finally led to hostilities between the two countries.

From the time of Jay's treaty to the peace of Amiens, and until the year 1804 in the following war, the relations between Great Britain and the United States remained on a fairly settled basis. Innumerable vexations, indeed, attended neutral commerce at the hands of cruisers who were willing on slight grounds to seize a prize, taking the chance of the courts deciding in their favor, and the delays of prize courts added greatly to the annoyance; but upon the whole American trade throve greatly. In June, 1797, the Secretary of State reported, in reply to a resolution of the House, that "captures and losses by British cruisers, it is presumed, have not been numerous; for the citizens of the United States having, these three years past, been accustomed to look to the government for aid in prosecuting these claims, it is not to be doubted that, generally, these cases have been reported to the Department." In 1801 there was an outbreak of lawless seizure in the West Indies. [310] The American vessels engaged in that trade were small, and, as legal expenses were the same for a large as for a small prize, the cost of a contest amounted to a sum very disproportionate to the value of the ship; so the captors hoped, by the well-known delays of procedure, to extort a compromise. An abuse of this kind, however outrageous, is different in principle from the direct action of a government; nor are such cases the only ones in which men have been willing to take dishonest advantage of the imperfections, ambiguities, or delays of the law. [311] The Secretary of State, in transmitting a report on the subject to the House of Representatives, said, "Neither the communications from our minister at London, nor my conversations with the Chargé d'Affaires of his Britannic Majesty in the United States, would lead to an opinion that any additional orders have lately been given by the British government, authorizing the system of depredation alluded to." [312]

In fact, at this time Pitt's government seems to have considered all trade, which did not go direct to hostile countries, an advantage to Great Britain, and especially if it could be drawn to pass through her own ports. Accordingly, in January, 1798, a further relaxation of the Rule of 1756 was promulgated, extending to European neutrals the concession made in 1794 to the United States. British cruisers were now directed not to capture neutral ships, bound from the hostile colonies to Europe and laden with colonial produce, provided the latter had become neutral property and its destination was to their own country, or to a port of Great Britain. The final clause foreshadowed the policy of the Orders in Council of ten years later, towards which Great Britain, under the stress of war, was steadily gravitating. The law of self-preservation, divined by the instinct of the state, demanded that the United Kingdom should become, for that war, the storehouse of the world's commerce. The more thriving that commerce, the better for her, if it could be concentrated in her own borders. Thus France and the whole world should become tributary to a wealth and to a power by which, not Great Britain only, but the world should be saved. It was a great conception, of slow growth and gradual realization; it was disfigured in its progress by imperfections, blunders, and crimes; but it was radically sound and in the end victorious, for upon Great Britain and upon commerce hung the destinies of the world.

The action of France towards neutral, and especially towards American, vessels reflected the instability and excitement of the successive French governments, the violent passions of the time, and the uncertainty necessarily attendant upon the course of a nation which, having cut adrift from fixed principles and precedents, is guided only by changing impressions of right and wrong. The decree of the 9th of May, 1793, arresting vessels laden with provisions or carrying enemy's goods, was revoked as regards the United States on the 23d of the same month, because contrary to the treaty of 1778. On the 28th, five days later, the revocation was revoked, and the original order established. [313] On the first of July the decision was again reversed and the treaty ordered to be observed; notwithstanding which the United States minister found it impossible to obtain the release of vessels seized contrary to its terms, and on the 27th of the month the last decision was again repealed. [314] On the 22d of September the American minister writes: "I understand it is still in contemplation to repeal the decree I complained of, and that in the mean time it has not been transmitted to the tribunals. In effect, it can do very little harm; because the fleets of this country are confined by the enemy, and the privateers by a decree of the Convention." [315] Here matters rested during the Reign of Terror and until November 15, 1794, after the fall of Robespierre, when the Directory issued its first edict on the subject; reiterating that enemy's goods under the neutral flag would be considered liable to seizure, until the powers, enemies of France, should declare French property free on board neutral ships. This made the treatment of cargoes on American vessels depend, not upon the formal engagements of France with the United States, but upon the conduct of Great Britain; and it was succeeded, on the 3d of January, 1795, by a decree of revocation. Enemy's goods under neutral flags now remained exempt from capture until the 2d of July, 1796; when proclamation was issued, notifying neutral powers that the ships of the French Republic would be used against their merchant vessels, were it for the purpose of confiscation, search or detention, in the same manner that they suffered the English to act in regard to them. Great Britain was thus made supreme arbiter of the conduct of France towards neutrals.

This last step of the French government was directly traceable to its dissatisfaction with Jay's treaty, the ratifications of which had been exchanged at London on the 28th of October, 1795. On the 16th of February, 1796, the Minister of Foreign Affairs told Mr. Monroe, the American minister, that his government considered the alliance between the two countries, formed by the treaty of 1778, to be terminated, ipso facto, by Jay's treaty; and on the 7th of October he was further informed that the minister to the United States had been recalled and would not be replaced. Meanwhile President Washington, being dissatisfied with Monroe's conduct, had summoned him home and sent out Mr. Pinckney as his relief; but the Directory, on the 11th of December, refused to receive any minister plenipotentiary from the United States until the grievances it had alleged were redressed, [316] and on the 25th of January, 1797, Pinckney was ordered to leave the country as an unauthorized foreigner.

France was now fully embarked on a course of violence toward the United States, which arose, not from any reasonable cause of discontent given, but from the disposition, identical with that shown toward the weaker European nations, to compel all countries to follow the dictates of the French policy. The utterly loose terms of the decree of July 2, 1796, authorized the seizure of any neutral vessel by a French captain, if, in his judgment, the conduct of Great Britain toward the neutral justified it; and left the ultimate fate of the prize to a tribunal governed only by its own opinion upon the same subject. "You are mistaken," said a French deputy, "if you think that a privateer sails furnished with instructions from the Minister of Marine, who ought to direct their action. The instructions are drawn up by his owners; they indicate to the captain what he may seize and what release. They compile for him his duties under all the rules, under all the laws, contradictory or otherwise, from the year 1400 up to the law of Nivôse 29, An 6" (Jan. 18, 1798). [317]

In the West Indies the French agents, practically removed from all control of the home government by the British command of the sea, issued on the 27th of November, 1796, a decree for the capture of Americans bound to, or coming from, British ports. They had already, on the first of August, directed that all vessels having contraband goods on board should be seized and condemned, whatever their destination, and although the accepted law condemned only the contraband articles themselves, not the ship nor the rest of the cargo. On the first of the following February the same commissioners ordered the capture of all neutrals sailing for the French islands which had surrendered to the enemy, and declared them good prize. That these acts fairly represented the purpose of the Directory may be inferred from the capture of American ships in European waters under the decree of July 2, and from the fact that the French consuls at Malaga and Cadiz interpreted the decree to authorize seizure and condemnation for the single circumstance of being destined for a British port. [318] Over three hundred American vessels were thus seized, and most of them condemned. Envoys sent from the United States to treat concerning these matters said, in October, 1797, that France had violently taken from America over fifteen million dollars. [319] "At no period of the war," wrote they again, February 7, 1798, "has Britain undertaken to exercise such a power. At no period has she asserted such a right." [320] "Was there ever anything," said the deputy before quoted, "like the injustice of the condemnations in the Antilles?"

These irregular and arbitrary proceedings are chiefly significant as showing the lack of any fixed principles of action on the part of the French government and its agents; and they were closely connected with similar courses towards neutral vessels in French ports. At the outbreak of hostilities in 1793, one hundred and three American ships were embargoed at Bordeaux and detained more than a year, without any reason given; nor had the owners been indemnified in 1796. [321] Cargoes were forcibly taken from vessels and payment either refused or offered in kind, and so delayed that in the West Indies alone the American losses were calculated at two million dollars. Besides these acts, which had the character of spoliations, the contracts and other financial obligations of the French government and its agents with citizens of the United States remained undischarged. The irritation between the two governments, and on the part of American merchants, continued to increase rapidly. The decree of July 2, the essence of which was the formal repudiation of a clause of the treaty of 1778, at the time when alone it became applicable, remained in force; and was rendered more obnoxious by a further order, of March 2, 1797, making more stringent the proofs of neutrality to be adduced before French tribunals and requiring papers which had long been disused.

At this time the astonishing successes of Bonaparte's Italian campaigns were approaching their triumphant conclusion. The battle of Rivoli had been fought on the 14th of January, 1797, [322] Mantua capitulated on the 2d of February, and the Pope had been compelled to sue for peace. To Austria there remained only the hope of contesting the approach to her German dominions. The confidence of the Directors knew no bounds, and they now began to formulate the policy toward British commerce which Napoleon inherited from them. The design was formed of forcing the United States to recede from the obnoxious conventions of Jay's treaty; and the government of Holland, then entirely dependent upon that of France, was pressed to demand that Dutch property on board American vessels should be protected against British seizure, and to suggest the concurrence of the three republics against Great Britain. [323] The Dutch accordingly represented "that, when circumstances oblige our commerce to confide its interests to the neutral flag of American vessels, it has a just right to insist that that flag be protected with energy;" [324] in other words, that, when the British control of the sea forced the Dutch ships from it, Dutch trade should be carried on under the American flag, and that the United States should fight to prevent the seizure of the Dutch property, although it admitted that the traditional law of nations would not justify it in so doing. On the 6th of May, 1797, Spain also, doubtless under the dictation of France, made the same demand. [324] Similar representations were made to the other neutral country, Denmark. Here is seen the forerunner of Napoleon's contention that, as against Great Britain's control of the sea, no state had a right to be neutral. Soon afterward the idea was carried farther. Denmark was requested to close the mouth of the Elbe to British commerce. "The French," wrote our minister to London on the 12th of March, 1797, "assign our treaty with England as the cause of their maritime conduct toward us, but they have recently demanded of Hamburg and Bremen to suspend all commerce with England. These have not complied, and the French minister has been recalled from Hamburg. The same demand has been made at Copenhagen, and the refusal has produced a sharp diplomatic controversy. These powers have made no late treaty with England." [325]

Hostilities with Austria had ceased by the preliminaries of Leoben, April 18, followed, after long negotiations, by the treaty of Campo Formio, October 17, 1797. Of the coalition against France, Great Britain alone remained upright and defiant. She had in 1797, after Austria had yielded, offered to negotiate; but the terms demanded were such that she refused to accept them, and her envoy was ordered out of France as peremptorily as Mr. Pinckney had been a few months before. The Directory thought that the time was now come when she could be brought to unconditional surrender, and the weapon by which her commerce should be annihilated was already forged to its hand. On the 31st of October, 1796 (Brumaire 10, An 5), [326] a law had been passed by the Legislature forbidding entirely the admission of any British manufactured goods, directing that all persons who already had such in possession should declare them within three days, and that they should be at once packed and stored for re-exportation. In order to insure the execution of the statute, domiciliary visits were authorized everywhere within three leagues of the frontiers or sea-board, and throughout France the dwellings of all tradesmen were also open to search. Laws of similar purpose had been passed early in the war; [327] but they either had been found insufficient or were no longer applicable to the changed conditions of affairs. "Now that," to use the words of a deputy, "the flags of the Republic or those of its allies float over the sea from Embden to Trieste, and almost all the ports of the European seas are closed to England, we must stop the voluntary subsidies which are paid her by the consumers of English merchandise." [328] With Belgium annexed, with Spain and Holland vassals rather than allies, with the greater part of Italy in military occupation, it seemed possible to repel the entrance points of British goods to the Continent far from the French frontier, and by strict watchfulness to close the latter against such as worked their way to it.

The expectation, however, was deceived; the superior quality and abundance of British manufactures created a demand which evaded all watchfulness and enlisted all classes against the officials. The Directory therefore determined, toward the end of 1797, to put the law into force with all severity and to introduce another and final rigor into its maritime prize code. On the 4th of January, 1798, a message was sent to the council of Five Hundred, announcing that "on that very day the municipal administrators, the justices of the peace, the commissaries of the Directory, and the superintendents of customs, are proceeding in all the chief places of the departments, in all the ports, and in all the principal communes, to seize all English merchandise now in France in contravention of the law of Brumaire 10, An 5. Such is the first act by which, now that peace is given to the Continent, the war declared long since against England is about to assume the real character that belongs to it." But more was needed. Neutral vessels were in the habit of entering British ports, shipping British goods, and carrying on British trade; they were even known, when opportunity offered, to introduce articles of British manufacture, directly or indirectly, into France. By so doing they aided Great Britain and actually took part in the war. "The Directory, therefore, thinks it urgent and necessary to pass a law declaring that the character of vessels, rela tive to their quality of neutral or enemy, shall be determined by their cargo; ... in consequence, that every vessel found at sea, having on board English merchandise as her cargo, in whole or in part, shall be declared lawful prize, whosoever shall be the proprietor of this merchandise, which shall be reputed contraband for this cause alone, that it comes from England or her possessions." This decree was adopted without discussion, in the very terms of the Directory's message, on the 18th of January, 1798. From that time forward, to use the expression of a French deputy, speaking a year later on the proposed repeal of the law, "if a handkerchief of English origin is found on board a neutral ship, both the rest of the cargo and the ship itself are subject to condemnation." It is, perhaps, well to point out that this differed from the Rule of 1756, by forbidding a trade which at all times had been open to neutrals, in peace as in war. It differed from the old rule condemning enemy's property found in neutral bottoms, by condemning also neutral property of hostile origin, together with the whole cargo and the ship, as contaminated by the presence of any British goods.

Nevertheless, British commerce continued to thrive, and was rather benefited than injured by the new law. What the indomitable purpose, unlimited power, and extraordinary mental and physical activity of Napoleon could only partially accomplish, proved to be wholly beyond the weak arm of the Directory. When war first shut the ports of France to Great Britain, her trade thither passed through the Netherlands and Holland. When the Netherlands were overrun, Amsterdam monopolized the traffic. With the fall of Holland, it passed away to Bremen and Hamburg. The latter port, being farther east and more remote from the French armies, naturally drew the greater part and became the real heir of Amsterdam. [329] It was the emporium of Northern Germany, through which poured the colonial produce of the world and the manufactures of the British Islands, and from which they were distributed over the Continent. The enormous subsidies paid by the United Kingdom to Germany found their way back, in part at least, by the increased purchasing power of the belligerent countries, [330] which consumed the manufactures of Great Britain and the coffee and sugar which had passed through her ports and paid toll to her revenues. [331] The shipping clearing for Hamburg from British ports, which was naught in 1793, rose to fifty-three thousand tons in 1795; and in 1798, the year during which the new French law operated, increased to seventy-four thousand. But, while Hamburg was the great centre, all the northern German ports shared the same prosperity. After Prussia retired from the war against France, in April, 1795, a neutral North German territory was established, behind a line agreed upon between the two countries. The total tonnage entering the ports of this region increased from one hundred and twenty thousand in 1792 to two hundred and six thousand in 1795; and in 1798 reached three hundred and three thousand. The value of merchandise imported rose from £2,200,000 in 1792, to £8,300,000 in 1795, £11,000,000 in 1798, and £13,500,000 in 1800. [332]

A similar elasticity was shown by British trade throughout the world. Only in the Mediterranean was there a marked decrease both of exports and imports,—a loss partly filled by the enterprise of American merchants; [333] but only partly, for the Barbary pirates seconded the sweeping French decrees in excluding neutrals from that sea. But it was in the West Indies, together with the German ports, that the commercial activity of Great Britain found its greatest resources; and in the steady support contributed by that region to her financial stability is to be found the justification of the much derided policy of Pitt in capturing sugar islands. Alike as valuable pieces of property, as possessions to be exchanged when framing a treaty, and as bases for cruisers, which not merely seized upon British shipping but disturbed the commercial development of the whole region, each hostile island should at once have been seized by Great Britain. In a contest between equal navies for the control of the sea, to waste military effort upon the capture of small islands, as the French did in 1778, is a preposterous misdirection of effort; but when one navy is overwhelmingly preponderant, as the British was after 1794, when the enemy confines himself to commerce-destroying by crowds of small privateers, then the true military policy is to stamp out the nests where they swarm. If, by so doing, control is also gained of a rich commercial region, as the Caribbean Sea then was, the action is doubly justified. The produce of the West Indies, as of the East, figured doubly in the returns of British commerce,—as imports, and as re-exported to the Continent. [334] Each captured island contributed to swell the revenues by which the war was maintained. [335] The disappearance of the merchant fleets of France, Spain, and Holland, the ruin of San Domingo, and the general disorganization of such French islands as were not taken, threw the greater part of the production of tropical articles into British hands; and the practice of the day, which confined its transport to British ships, helped to support the shipping interest also in the strain brought upon it by the war. The Americans alone could compete in the continental market as carriers of such produce. Debarred from going with it direct to Europe by the Rule of 1756, the rise in price, due to the diminished production and decrease of transport just mentioned, allowed them to take the sugar and coffee of the colonies at war with England to American ports, reship it to the Continent, and yet make a good profit on the transaction. As the British colonists were in full possession of the home market, and their produce commanded high prices, the outcry which caused so much trouble ten years later was not now raised. On the contrary, their prosperous condition facilitated the British orders of January, 1798, exempting from capture Danes, Swedes, and other neutral ships, when carrying coffee and sugar of hostile origin to their own country, or to England.

It was against this great system of trade that the law of Nivôse 29 was launched. British manufactured goods, rather than British gold and silver, bought and paid for the produce of the East and West Indies, for that of the United States and of the Levant. The Continent consumed the manufactures of Great Britain, the sugar and coffee of her colonies, and obtained through British merchants the spices and wares of the East; for all which it for the most part paid back specie. The United States took specie from France herself for the colonial produce carried there in its vessels, and with it paid Great Britain for her manufactures. France herself received British goods through continental channels, and paid hard cash for them. The money thus coming to London had flowed back as subsidies to the armies of the coalitions. Now, thanks to Bonaparte, Great Britain stood alone. The French navy was powerless to contend with her fleets; but, by actual possession or by treaty, the Directory had excluded her ships from a great part of the Continent. Nevertheless, British goods abounded in all parts through the complicity of neutral carriers. If these could be stopped, the market for British manufactures would be closed; therefore against them were launched the cruisers of France, with the authority of the decree to capture any one of them found with a bale or box of British origin on board. The result was curious.

After the lapse of a year, on the 13th of January, 1799, the Directory addressed a message to the lower house of the Legislature [336] on the subject of maritime prizes, in which occurred the celebrated avowal, already quoted, that not a single merchant ship under French colors sailed the deep seas. But this was not all. The irregularities and outrages of privateers had so terrified neutrals that there had been an immense diminution in the entries of neutral tonnage, although Great Britain had rather relaxed than increased the severe rules she had adopted early in the war. In consequence of the smaller importations from abroad, there were necessarily smaller sales of French goods, and the decrease of neutral carriers impeded the export of agricultural produce and manufactures, as well as the importation of raw materials essential to the latter. The Directory attributed the evil to an existing ordinance, which left the final determination of prize cases in the hands of the courts, instead of attributing it to the executive. It argued that if there were a right of final appeal to the latter, it could check the arbitrary proceedings of the cruisers and the erroneous decisions of the judges. If, as was represented by the American consulate at Paris, the courts of first instance were chiefly composed of merchants in the sea-ports, most of whom were, directly or indirectly, interested in fitting out privateers, [337] there was certainly need of some change in the existing legislation. In the Conseil des Anciens, however, a different view prevailed. On the 17th of January, 1799, a debate began in that body, on a resolution fixing the date when the law of January 18, 1798, became operative. [338] The consequent discussion took a wide range over the policy and results of the enactment, as shown by the year it had been in force. The disastrous commercial condition of France was freely admitted on all sides; but in several powerful speeches it was attributed directly and convincingly to the working of the law itself. "Neutrals repelled from our ports; our agricultural products without any outlet abroad; our industry and commerce annihilated; our colonies helpless; our shipping ways deserted; a balance of twenty thousand sailors in English prisons; our ships of war without seamen,—such are the political effects of the law which is ruining, crushing us." [339]

In less impassioned words, other deputies showed the unfairness of the law. If, on the land frontier, a wagon was stopped carrying a bale of British goods, the bale was confiscated, but the rest of the load escaped. If in a ship a like bale was found, not only it, but all the rest of the cargo and the ship itself were condemned. Even in the fiercest heat of the Revolution and the utmost danger to the country, it had never been attempted, as now, to forbid neutrals carrying British goods to their own country. [340] The step could not be justified under the plea of reprisals; for "if the English have seized French goods on these same neutrals, they have not confiscated the rest of the cargo. These are, therefore, not reprisals, but new proceedings on our part, which neutrals could neither expect nor guard against." [341] A neutral ship came within reach of the French coast only at her extreme peril. A small package of British goods would justify her capture by a French privateer, whatever her destination; nay, even if she were bringing to France articles urgently needed, and intended to take away French produce in exchange for them. Neutrals, allies, even French vessels themselves, carrying on the little trade with neighboring states, were preyed on by French corsairs. This condition reacted on the enterprise of the cruisers themselves. It was much safer, and quite as profitable, to keep close to the home coast and board passing vessels. The merest trifle, smuggled on board by one of the crew, or shipped unknown to the master and owner, made them good prize. Owing to this caution, the captures brought into French home ports had dropped, from six hundred and sixty-two in the previous year, to four hundred and fifty-two, notwithstanding the vast extension of the field for seizures. [342]

The loss of prizes, however, was far from being the worst effect of the law. Neutrals being repelled, friendly and French shipping scared away, commerce had been seriously crippled for want of carriage. In the year before the enactment the coasting trade employed 895,000 tons; of which 120,000 were neutrals, by whom goods were transported from one sea frontier of France to another, as from the Bay of Biscay to the French Mediterranean coast. In the year following, the total fell to 746,000; but the neutrals dropped to 38,000. In the foreign trade 860,000 tons were employed in the year before the law, of which 623,000 were neutral. In the year following, the total fell to 688,000, of which 468,000 were neutrals. There thus resulted a total loss of 322,000 tons in a commerce of only 1,750,000. To this the speaker added a striking comparison: "In the same year in which we lost 322,000 tons by the operation of the law, we took four hundred and fifty-two prizes. Assuming—what is not the case—that these were all English, and that they averaged two hundred tons burden—an excessive allowance—we have taken from our enemy 90,400 tons against 322,000 we have lost." "All the sufferings of ourselves and allies might be borne, if good resulted to ourselves or harm to England; but it has not." "English ships are insured at a premium of five per cent, while neutrals bound to France have to pay twenty to thirty per cent. Neutrals themselves seek English convoy. [343] French merchants would gladly charter neutral ships to carry to San Domingo the produce that is overflowing our storehouses, and to bring back the coffee and sugar for which we are paying such extravagant rates; but they will not come near us. So, instead of paying a moderate price with French goods, we are paying exorbitant rates in specie, which goes straight to England, our most cruel foe." [344] The policy of the law was condemned by the results. In support of its justice, it was alleged that there were at sea only French and British ships, whence it followed that all which were not French could be seized,—a contention which derives its sole present interest from being the same as that put forth by Napoleon ten years later. It shows again—what can scarcely be too often asserted in the interests of truth—that the emperor was but the full and perfect incarnation of the spirit that animated the Convention and the Directory.

The Government of the United States had not yet, in 1798, passed into the hands of men with an undue "passion for peace." Upon the unceremonious dismissal of Mr. Pinckney, not for personal objections but as rejecting any minister from America, the President had called a special meeting of Congress in May, 1797, and recommended an increase of the naval establishment. When the news of the law of January 18, 1798, reached the United States, Congress was in session. On the 28th of May an act was approved, authorizing the capture of any French armed vessel which shall, upon the coast of the United States, have committed any depredation upon her commerce. [345] On the 7th of July another act abrogated all existing treaties between the two countries; [346] and on the 9th was decreed the seizure of French armed vessels anywhere on the high seas, not only by public armed ships, but by privateers, which the President was authorized to commission. [347] Thereupon followed a period of maritime hostilities, though without a formal declaration of war, which lasted three years; the first prize being taken from the French in June, 1798, and peace being restored by a treaty, signed in Paris September 30, 1800, and ratified the following February. The small force of the United States was principally occupied in the West Indies, protecting their trade,—both by the patrol system directed against the enemy's cruisers, and by convoying bodies of merchantmen to and from the islands. As the condition of the French navy did not allow keeping large fleets afloat, the ships of the United States, though generally small, were able to hold their ground, capture many of the enemy, and preserve their own commerce from molestation. The mercantile shipping of France, however, had already been so entirely destroyed by Great Britain, that she suffered far more from the cessation of the carrying trade, which Americans had maintained for her, than from the attacks of the American navy.

The year 1798, which opened with the unlucky law of January 18, was in all respects unfortunate for France. In May Bonaparte sailed for Egypt, the country thus parting with its ablest general, with thirty-two thousand of its best troops, and its only available fleet, of thirteen sail-of-the-line, which the government with the utmost difficulty had been able to equip. On the first of August Nelson destroyed the fleet in the Battle of the Nile; and the British navy, forced to leave the Mediterranean in 1796, again asserted its preponderance throughout the whole of that sea, opposing an effectual barrier to the return of the army in Egypt. The entire face of affairs changed, not only in the East but in Europe. The Porte, at first hesitating, declared openly against France. A second coalition was formed between Great Britain, Austria, and Russia, to which Naples acceded; and the armies of the latter entered upon their campaign in November. They were, indeed, quickly overthrown; but the very march of the French troops against them left the armies in northern Italy hopelessly inferior to their opponents. The year 1799 was full of reverses. In Germany and in Italy the French were steadily driven back; in Switzerland only did they, under Masséna, hold their ground. The British indeed were repelled in their attack upon Holland, but they carried away with them the Dutch navy. A Russo-Turkish fleet, entering the Mediterranean, retook the Ionian Islands from the French; and Admiral Bruix escaped from Brest only to find it impossible to achieve any substantial results in the face of the British superiority on the sea. In the midst of this confusion and disaster, and amid the commercial and internal distress caused by the maritime legislation, Bonaparte returned. Landing on the 9th of October, he on the 9th of November overthrew the Directory. Preparations for war were at once begun, and the successes of the first consul in Italy and of Moreau in Germany, in 1800, combined with the defection of the czar from the coalition, restored peace to the Continent and internal quiet to France.

Upon this followed the renewal of the Armed Neutrality of the Baltic powers. Great Britain found herself again without an ally, face to face with France, now supported by the naval combination of the northern states. Still she stood resolute, abating not a jot of her asserted maritime rights. As before, the allies demanded that the neutral flag should cover the enemy's property that floated under it, and that the term "contraband of war" should apply only to articles strictly and solely applicable to warlike purposes, which, they claimed, naval stores and provisions were not. They proposed also to deprive Great Britain of the belligerent right of search, by sending ships of war with the merchant ships, and requiring that the assertion of the naval captain should be received as establishing the lawful character of the two or three hundred cargoes under his convoy. "The question," said Pitt, "is whether we are to permit the navy of our enemy to be recruited and supplied,—whether we are to suffer blockaded ports to be furnished with warlike stores and provisions,—whether we are to suffer neutral nations, by hoisting a flag upon a sloop or a fishing boat, to convey the treasures of South America to the harbors of Spain, or the naval stores of the Baltic to Brest and Toulon. I would ask, too, has there ever been a period, since we have been a naval country, in which we have acted upon this principle?" [348] and he alleged not only the unbroken practice of Great Britain, but her old treaties with the allied states, and especially the convention with Russia in 1793. So far as precedent and tradition went, England's case was unimpeachable. She was called upon to surrender, not a new pretension, but an old right important to her military position. "I have no hesitation," said Fox, Pitt's great opponent, "in saying that, as a general proposition, 'free bottoms do not make free goods;' and that, as an axiom, it is supported neither by the law of nations nor by common-sense." [349]

At this time the British navy was superior to the combined forces of all Europe. A fleet, of which Nelson was the animating spirit though not the nominal head, entered the Baltic. Denmark was struck down on the 2d of April, 1801; and this blow, coinciding with the murder of the Czar Paul, dissolved a coalition more menacing in appearance than in reality. The young man who succeeded to the Russian throne met with dignity the imposing attitude of Nelson, now left in chief command; but he had not inherited his father's fantastic ambitions, and the material interests of Russia in that day pointed to peace with Great Britain. The treaty, signed June 5, 1801, [350] permitted the neutral to trade from port to port on the coast of a nation at war; but renounced, on the part of Russia, the claim that the neutral flag covered the enemy's goods. On the other hand Great Britain admitted that property of a belligerent, sold bonâ fide to a neutral, became neutral in character and as such not liable to seizure; but from the operation of this admission obtained the special exception of produce from the hostile colonies. [351] This, Russia conceded, could not be carried directly from the colony to the mother country, even though it had become neutral property by a real sale; and similarly the direct trade from the mother country to the colony was renounced. Great Britain thus obtained an explicit acknowledgment of the Rule of 1756 from the most formidable of the maritime powers, and strengthened her hands for the approaching dispute with the United States. In return, she abandoned the claim, far more injurious to Russia, to seize naval stores as contraband of war. Four months later, hostilities between Great Britain and France also ceased.

The maritime commercial interests, both of belligerents and neutrals, received convincing and conspicuous illustration from this, the first of the two sea wars growing out of the French Revolution. It was the interest of the neutrals to step in and take up the trade necessarily abandoned, to a greater or less degree, by the belligerents; and it was also useful to both parties to the war that they should do so. But it was very much less to the advantage of the more purely maritime state than it was to its antagonist; for not only did she need help less, but such temporary changes in the course of trade tend to become permanent. The immediate gain may become a final and irretrievable loss. Hence Great Britain is seen to yield readily the restrictions of the Navigation Act, wherever it is clearly advisable to avail herself of neutral seamen or neutral carriers; but the concession goes no further than immediately necessary, and is always expressly guarded as temporary. The relaxation is a purely warlike measure, and she is perfectly consistent in refusing to allow it to her enemies. Every slackening of the Navigation Act was a violation in principle of the Rule of 1756, [352] which she was quite content to have her enemy imitate; as the big boy at school offers the small one the opportunity of returning an injury in kind. France might employ neutrals contrary to what Great Britain claimed as the law of nations, as the latter herself did; but there was the difference that Great Britain could put a stop to the operations favorable to her opponent, while France could only partially impede those that advantaged hers. It was, therefore, clearly the policy of the British to yield nothing to neutrals except when they could not avoid it, and then explicitly to assert the principle, while conceding a relaxation; they thus kept control over the neutral trade, and impeded operations that both helped their enemy and might also supplant their own commerce. In the latter part of the war, as the purpose of France to cripple their trade took shape, and the exclusion of British goods from the Continent became an evident and avowed intention, the ministry strengthened itself with the reflection that the measure was impracticable so long as neutral bottoms abounded; but a few months later the denial of intercourse between hostile nations and their colonies by neutral intermediaries was inserted in the Russian treaty. The intention to use neutrals to the utmost extent desirable for British interests thus coincided with the determination to stop a traffic esteemed contrary to them. The permission to neutrals, by the orders of January, 1798, to carry the produce of French and Dutch colonies to Great Britain, when they were threatened with seizure if they sailed with the same for France or Holland, illustrates both motives of action; while it betrays the gradual shaping of the policy—which grew up over against Bonaparte's Continental System—of forcing neutrals to make England the storehouse and toll-gate of the world's commerce. Superficially, Great Britain seems rather to relax toward neutrals between 1793 and 1801; but the appearance is only superficial. The tendencies that issued in the ever famous Orders in Council of 1807 were alive and working in 1798.

The question for British statesmen to determine, therefore, was how far to acquiesce in the expansion of neutral trade, and where to draw their line,—always a difficult task, dependent upon many considerations and liable to result in inconsistencies, real or apparent. For France the problem was less intricate. Her commerce even before the war was chiefly in foreign hands; [353] she had therefore little cause to fear ultimate injury by concessions. Immediate loss by neutral competition was impossible, for the British navy left her no ships to lose. Hence it was her interest to avail herself of neutral carriers to the fullest extent, to recognize that the freer their operations the better for her, and that, even could restrictions upon their carrying for her enemy be enforced, the result would be to compel the British people to develop further their own merchant shipping. Every blow at a neutral was really, even though not seemingly, a blow for Great Britain. In a general way this was seen clearly enough, and a policy favoring neutrals was traditional in France, but the blind passions of the Revolution overthrew it. To use the vigorous words of a deputy: "The French people is the victim of an ill-devised scheme, of a too blind trust in commerce-destroying, an auxiliary measure, which, to be really useful, should strike only the enemy, and not reach the navigation of neutrals and allies, and still less paralyze the circulation and export of our agriculture and of the national industries." [354] Such were the results of the direct action of successive French governments, and of the indirect embarrassment caused by the delays and inconsistencies of the executive and the tribunals. It was thought that neutrals could be coerced by French severities into resisting British restrictions, whether countenanced or not by international law. But Great Britain, though a hard taskmaster, did not so lay her burdens as to lose services which were essential to her, nor compel a resistance that under the military conditions was hopeless; and the series of wild measures, which culminated in the law of January 18, 1798, only frightened neutrals from French coasts, while leaving Great Britain in full control of the sea. The year 1797 saw the lowest depression of British trade; coincidently with the law of January 18 began a development, which, at first gradual, soon became rapid, and in which the neutrals driven from France bore an increasing proportion.

The short peace of Amiens lasted long enough to indicate how thoroughly Great Britain, while using neutrals, had preserved her own maritime advantages intact. The preliminaries were signed October 1, 1801, and war was again declared May 16, 1803; but, notwithstanding the delays in paying off the ships of war, and the maintenance of an unusually large number of seamen in the peace establishment, the neutral shipping employed fell from twenty-eight per cent, in 1801, to eighteen and a half per cent in 1802.

On the outbreak of the second war Napoleon reverted at once to the commercial policy of the Convention and the Directory. On the 20th of June, 1803, a decree was issued by him directing the confiscation of any produce of the British colonies, and of any manufactures of Great Britain, introduced into France. Neutral vessels arriving were required to present a certificate from the French consul at the port of embarkation, certifying that the cargo was in no part of British origin. The same measure was forcibly carried out in Holland, though nominally an independent state; [355] and the occupation of Hanover, while dictated also by the general principle of injuring Great Britain as much as possible, had mainly in view the closure of the Elbe and the Weser to British commerce. Beyond this, however, Bonaparte being then engrossed with the purpose of a direct attack by armed force upon the British islands, the indirect hostilities upon their commercial prosperity were, for the moment, neglected.

At the same period Great Britain began to feel that neutral rivalry was being carried too far for her own welfare, and determined to tighten the reins previously slackened. She obtained from Sweden in July, 1803, a special concession, allowing her to arrest Swedish vessels laden with naval stores for France, and to purchase the cargoes at a fair price,—a stipulation identical with that about provisions in Jay's treaty; and when the French occupation of Hanover excluded her ships from the Elbe and Weser, she by a blockade of the rivers shut out neutrals also. But it was in the West Indies, so long a fruitful source of wealth, that the pressure of neutral competition was most heavily felt. The utter ruin of San Domingo, and the embarrassments of the other islands hostile to Great Britain, had in the former war combined with the dangers of the seas to raise the price of colonial produce on the Continent, [356] and, consequently, to give a great development to the British growth of sugar and coffee, the transport of which was confined by law to British vessels. The planters, the shipping business, and the British merchants dealing with the West Indies, together with the various commercial interests and industries connected with them, all participated in the benefits of this traffic, which supplied over one fourth of the imports of the kingdom, and took off besides a large amount of manufactures. As production increased, however, and prices lowered, the West India business began to feel keenly the competition by the produce of the hostile islands, exported by American merchants.

Of the extent of this commerce, and of its dependence upon the interruption, by Great Britain, of the ordinary channels for French and Dutch trade, a few figures will give an idea. In 1792, before the war, the United States exported to Europe 1,122,000 pounds of sugar, and 2,136,742 of coffee; in 1796, 35,000,000 of sugar and 62,000,000 of coffee; in 1800, 82,000,000 of sugar and 47,000,000 coffee. In 1803, during the short peace, the exports fell to 20,000,000 of sugar and 10,000,000 coffee; in 1804, a year of war, they again rose to 74,000,000 sugar, and 48,000,000 coffee. The precise destination cannot be given; but the trade between France and her West India Islands, carried on by American ships, amounted in 1805 to over $20,000,000, of which only $6,000,000 were United States produce. In like manner the trade with Holland was over $17,000,000, of which $2,000,000 were of American origin.

Upon the return of Mr. Pitt to power, in 1804, the attempt was made to strengthen the fabric of British commercial prosperity in the Caribbean, by an extension of the system of free ports in the different colonies; by means of which, and of their large merchant shipping, the British collected in their own hands, by both authorized and contraband traffic, so much of the carrying trade of this region, extending their operations to the mainland as well as throughout the islands. More, however, was needed to restrain the operations of the Americans, who, by reducing the price of coffee on the Continent, diminished the re-exportation from Great Britain, thus affecting the revenue of the kingdom and the profits of the planters; and who also, by acting as carriers, interfered with the accumulations at the free ports and the consequent employment of British ships. All the classes interested joined in urging the government to find some relief; and the clamor was increased by a sense of indignation at the tricks by which belligerent rights were believed to be evaded by the Americans. The Rule of 1756 did not allow the latter to carry their cargoes direct to Europe; but, as the trade winds compelled vessels to run to the northward until they reached the westerly winds prevailing in the higher latitudes, no great delay was involved in making an American port, or even in trans-shipping the cargo to a vessel bound for Europe. [357] Great Britain admitted that articles of hostile origin, but become neutral property, could be carried freely to the neutral country; and, when so imported, became part of the neutral stock and could then be freely re-exported to a hostile state.

The question of a bonâ fide importation, like all others involving a question of intention, could be determined only by the character of the transactions attending it; but it was held generally that actual landing and storage, with payment of the duties, was sufficient proof, unless rebutted by other circumstances. Early in the war following the peace of Amiens, the British courts awoke to the fact that the duties paid on goods so imported were simply secured by a bond, and that on re-exportation a drawback was given, so that a very small percentage of the nominal duties was actually paid. [358] Upon this ground a ship was condemned in May, 1805, and great numbers of American vessels carrying colonial produce to Europe were seized and brought into port, as well as others proceeding from the United States to the West Indies, with cargoes originating in the mother countries; and when, in the opinion of the court, the duties had been only nominally paid, they were condemned. It is hard to see the soundness of an objection to these decisions, based on the validity of the payments; but the action of the British government is open to severe censure in that no warning was given of its purpose no longer to accept, as proof of importation, the payment of duties by bond, on which drawback was given. Whether it had known the law of the United States or not, that law had been open to it, and ignorance of its provisions was due not to any want of publicity, but to the carelessness of British authorities. Under the circumstances, the first seizures were little short of robbery.

The reclamations of the United States met with little attention during Pitt's brief second administration; but after his death, in January, 1806, and the accession to office of Grenville and Fox, a more conciliatory attitude was shown,—especially by the latter, who became Minister of Foreign Affairs. Favorably inclined to the Americans since his opposition to the policy of the Revolutionary War, he seemed desirous of conceding their wishes; but the pressure from without, joined to opposition within the ministry, prevented a frank reversal of the course pursued. Instead of the Rule of 1756, Fox obtained an Order in Council, dated May 16, 1806, placing the coast of the Continent, from Brest to the Elbe, in a state of blockade. The blockade, however, was only to be enforced strictly between the mouth of the Seine and Ostend. Into ports between those two points no neutral would be admitted on any pretext, and, if attempting to enter, would be condemned; but on either side, neutral ships could go in and out freely, provided they "had not been laden at any port belonging to his Majesty's enemies, or, if departing, were not destined to any port belonging to his Majesty's enemies." The wording of the order was evidently framed to avoid all question as to the origin of cargoes, upon which the Rule of 1756 hinged. Not the origin of the cargo, but the port of lading, determined the admission of the neutral ship to the harbors partially blockaded; and if to them, then, a fortiori, to all open ports of the enemy. On the other hand, the strict blockade already established of the Elbe and Weser was by this order partially relieved, in the expectation that neutrals would carry British manufactures to those northern markets. In short, the Order was a compromise, granting something both to the mercantile interest and to the Americans, though not conceding the full demands of either. It is at best doubtful whether the British were able to establish an effective blockade over the extent of coast from Brest to the Elbe, but the United States and Napoleon had no doubts whatever about it; and it thus fell, by a singular irony of fate, to the most liberal of the British statesmen, the friend of the Americans and of Napoleon, as almost the last act of his life, to fire the train which led to the Berlin and Milan decrees, to the Orders in Council of 1807, and to the war with the United States six years later.

Fox died on the 13th of September, 1806, and was succeeded as Minister of Foreign Affairs by Lord Howick. On the 25th of the same month the partial restrictions still imposed on the Elbe and the Weser were removed; so that neutral ships, even though from the ports of an enemy of Great Britain, were able to enter. In the mean time, war had broken out between France and Prussia; the battle of Jena was fought October 14, and on the 26th Napoleon entered Berlin. The battle of Trafalgar, a twelvemonth before, had shattered all his confidence in the French navy and destroyed his hopes of directly invading Great Britain. On the other hand the short campaign of 1805 had overthrown the Austrian power, and that of 1806 had just laid Prussia at his feet. The dream of reducing Great Britain by the destruction of her commercial prosperity, long floating in his mind, now became tangible, and was formulated into the phrase that he "would conquer the sea by the land." Two of the great military monarchies were already prostrate. Spain, Holland, Italy, and the smaller German states were vassals, more or less unwilling, but completely under his control; there seemed no reason to doubt that he could impose his will on the Continent and force it to close every port to British trade. On the 21st of November, 1806, the emperor issued the famous Berlin Decree; and then, having taken the first in the series of fated steps which led to his ruin, he turned to the eastward and plunged with his army into the rigors of a Polish winter to fulfil his destiny.