grain to barter for sugar,
coffee, and rum at Martinique, Antigua, and St. Kitts. The traffic
promised to be most lucrative. But disaster overtook many a gallant
vessel before she could reach her destination. In June, British orders
in council instructed English cruisers to detain all vessels bound for a
French port with corn, flour, and meal, and to purchase such supplies as
were needed. Such vessels were then to be allowed to proceed to any port
of a state with which His Majesty was living in amity. The skipper who
had anything worth taking to a foreign port after an experience of this
sort was lucky indeed. In November orders were issued for the seizure of
all vessels laden with French colonial products or carrying provisions
to any French colony.

Tales of outrages perpetrated under the British orders in council soon
began to reach the home ports of the West India merchantmen. Doubtless
these tales lost nothing in the telling, but the unimpeachable fact
remains that scores of American ships were seized and libeled in
admiralty courts set up in the British West Indies. Nor did the British
naval officers hesitate to impress seamen who were suspected of being
British subjects. Republican opponents of the Administration, who had
felt the proclamation of neutrality as a rebuff to our old ally, France,
were now confirmed in their hostility to Great Britain. To their minds
ample cause for war existed.

The policy which Jefferson and Madison would have forced upon the
Administration was one of retaliation. In a report to Congress Jefferson
proposed that whenever our commerce was laid under restrictions by a
foreign nation, similar restrictions should be put upon the trade of the
offending state. By pacific coercion, the United States would oblige
foreign states to make favorable commercial treaties. Madison urged this
policy upon Congress in a series of resolutions; but the supporters of
the Administration pointed out that retaliatory measures would sacrifice
the trade with Great Britain, which furnished seven eighths of the total
imports into the country. It was plain that the mercantile classes which
upheld the Administration did not desire either war or retaliatory
legislation, however much they might be suffering from British
depredations. The resources of diplomacy were not yet exhausted. Might
not a treaty be secured which would open up the British West India
trade?

Upon the news of the offensive orders in council