reatment of American ships Great Britain had
transcended international law, and abused belligerent privilege, by
forced construction in two particulars. First, in June, 1793, she sent
into her own ports American vessels bound to France with provisions,
on the ground that under existing circumstance these were contraband
of war. She did indeed buy the cargoes, and pay the freight, thus
reducing the loss to the shipper; but he was deprived of the surplus
profit arising from extraordinary demand in France, and it was claimed
besides that the procedure was illegal. Secondly, in November of the
same year, the British Government directed the seizure of "all ships
laden with goods the produce of any colony belonging to France, or
carrying provisions or other supplies for the use of any such colony."
Neutrals were thus forbidden either to go to, or to sail from, any
French colony for purposes of commercial intercourse. For the injuries
suffered under these measures Jay was to seek compensation.

The first order raised only a question of contraband, of frequent
recurrence in all hostilities. It did not affect the issues which led
to the War of 1812, and therefore need not here be further considered.
But the second turned purely on the question of the intercourse of
neutrals with the colonies of belligerents, and rested upon those
received opinions concerning the relations of colonies to mother
countries, which have been related in the previous chapters. The
British Government founded the justification of its action upon a
precedent established by its own Admiralty courts, which, though not
strictly new, was recent, dating back only to the Seven Years' War,
1756-63, whence it had received the name of the Rule of 1756. At that
time, in the world of European civilization, all the principal
maritime communities were either mother countries or colonies. A
colonial system was the appendage of every maritime state; and among
all there obtained the invariable rule, the formulation of which by
Montesquieu has been already quoted, that "commercial monopoly is the
leading principle of colonial intercourse," from which foreign states
were rigorously excluded. Dealing with such a recognized international
relation, at a period when colonial production had reached
unprecedented proportions, the British courts had laid down the
principle that a trade which a nation in time of peace forbade to
foreigners could not be extended to them, if neutral