ractical extinction of the French carrying trade. Until 1807 they
shared this with the Scandinavian countries; but after that year
Napoleon, by threats and the terror {191} of his name, forced an
unwelcome alliance upon all the States of Europe, and the United States
became the sole important neutral.

In these circumstances, the merchant shipping of the United States
flourished enormously, the more especially since, by importing and
immediately re-exporting West India products from the French islands,
Yankee skippers were able to avoid the dangerous "Rule of 1756," and to
send sugar and cocoa from French colonies to Europe and England under the
guise of American produce. By 1805, the whole supply of European sugar
was carried in American bottoms, to the enormous profit of the United
States. American ships also shared largely in the coasting trade of
Europe, carrying goods between ports where British ships were naturally
excluded. In fact, the great prosperity and high customs receipts to
which the financial success of the Jeffersonians was due depended to a
great extent on the fortunate neutral situation of the United States.

By 1805, the British shipowners felt that flesh and blood could not
endure the situation. Here were France and her allies easily escaping
the hardships of British naval pressure by employing neutrals to carry on
their trade. Worse still, the Americans, by the device of entering and
clearing {192} French sugar at an American port, were now able calmly to
take it to England and undersell the West Indian planters in their own
home markets. Pamphleteers began to criticize the government for
permitting such unfair competition, Lord Sheffield, as in 1783, leading
the way. In October, 1805, James Stephen, a far abler writer, summed up
the anger of the British ship-owners and naval officers in a pamphlet
entitled, "War in disguise, or the Frauds of the Neutral Trade." He
asserted that the whole American neutral commerce was nothing more or
less than an evasion of the Rule of 1756 for the joint benefit of France
and the United States, and he called upon the government to put a stop to
this practical alliance of America with Napoleon. This utterance seems
to have made a profound impression; for a time Stephen's views became the
fixed beliefs of influential public men as well as of the naval and
shipowning interests.

The first steps indicating British restlessness were taken by the Pitt
Ministr