t been confined to the land. Merchantmen in their
ports, and even at sea, were visited, and mariners were taken out of
them, to be employed in the royal navy. The profits of trade enabling
neutral merchants to give high wages, British sailors were tempted, in
great numbers, to enter their service; but the neutral ship furnished
no protection. Disregarding the bottom in which they sailed, the
officers of the navy impressed them wherever found, often leaving
scarcely hands enough to navigate the vessel into port.

The Americans were peculiarly exposed to the abuse to which such
usages are liable. Descended from the same ancestors and speaking the
same language, the distinction between them and the English, though in
general sufficiently marked, was not always so visible as to prevent
unintentional error; nor were the captains of ships of war, at all
times, very solicitous to avoid mistake. Native Americans, therefore,
were frequently impressed, and compelled to serve against the French
republic.

The British cabinet disclaimed all pretensions to the impressment of
real American citizens, and declared officially a willingness to
discharge them, on the establishment of their citizenship. But time
was necessary to procure the requisite testimonials; and those
officers who had notoriously offended in this respect, were not so
discountenanced by their government as to be deterred from a
repetition of the offence. There was too, one class of citizens,
concerning whose rights a difference of opinion prevailed, which has
not even yet been adjusted. These were British subjects who had
migrated to, and been adopted by, the United States.

The continuance of the Indian war added still another item to this
catalogue of discontents.

The efforts of the United States to make a treaty with the savages of
the Miamis had proved abortive. The Indians insisted on the Ohio as
the boundary between them and the whites; and, although the American
commissioners expressed a willingness to relinquish some of the lands
purchased at the treaty of fort Harmar, and pressed them to propose
some line between the boundary established by that treaty and the
Ohio, they adhered inflexibly to their original demand.

It was extensively believed in America, and information collected from
the Indians countenanced the opinion, that they were encouraged by the
government of Canada to persevere in this claim, and that the treaty
was defeated by British influ