eyes. The products of hostile origin carried
by Americans to neutral or hostile countries in Europe did by
competition reduce seriously the profit upon British colonial articles
of the same kind, to the injury of the finances of the kingdom; and
the American carriers, the American ships, not only supplanted so much
British tonnage, but were enabled to do so by British seamen, who
found in them a quiet refuge--relatively, though not wholly,
secure--from the impressment which everywhere pursued the British
merchant ship. It was a fundamental conviction of all British
statesmen, and of the general British public, that the welfare of the
navy, the one defence of the empire, depended upon maintaining the
carrying trade, with the right of impressment from it; and Pitt, upon
his return to office, had noted "with considerable concern, the
increasing acrimony which appears to pervade the representations made
to you [the British Minister at Washington] by the American Secretary
of State on the subject of the impressment of seamen from on board
American ships."[119]

The issue of direct trade was decided adversely to the contention of
the United States, in the test case of the ship "Essex," in May, 1805,
by the first living authority in England on maritime international
law, Sir William Scott. Resting upon the Rule of 1756, he held that
direct trade from belligerent colonies to Europe was forbidden to
neutrals, except under the conditions of the relaxing Orders of 1798
and 1803; but the privilege to carry to their own country having been
by these extended, it was conceded, in accordance with precedent,
that products thus imported, if they had complied with the legal
requirements for admission _to use_ in the importing country,
thenceforth had its nationality. They became neutral in character, and
could be exported like native produce to any place open to commerce,
belligerent or neutral. United States shippers, therefore, were at
liberty to send even to France French colonial products which had been
thus Americanized. The effect of this procedure upon the articles in
question was to raise their price at the place of final arrival, by
all the expense incident to a broken transit; by the cost of landing,
storing, paying duties, and reshipping, together with that of the
delay consequent upon entering an American port to undergo these
processes. With the value thus enhanced upon reaching the continent of
Europe, the British planter,