of this stormy
period, Thomas Barclay, a loyalist during the War of Independence,
affirms from time to time, with evident sincerity of conviction, the
wishes of the British Government and naval officers not to impress
American seamen; but his published correspondence contains none the
less several specific instances, in which he assures British admirals
and captains that impressed men serving on board their ships are
beyond doubt native Americans, and his editor remarks that "only a few
of his many appeals on behalf of Americans unlawfully seized are here
printed."[137] This, too, in the immediate neighborhood of the United
States, where evidence was most readily at hand. The condition was
intolerable, and in principle it mattered nothing whether one man or
many thus suffered. That the thing was possible, even for a single
most humble and unknown native of the United States, condemned the
system, and called imperiously for remedy. The only effectual remedy,
however, was the abandonment of the practice altogether, whether or
not the theoretic ground for such abandonment was that advanced by the
United States. Long before 1806, experience had demonstrated, what had
been abundantly clear to foresight, that a naval lieutenant or captain
could not safely be intrusted with a function so delicate as deciding
the nationality of a likely English-speaking topman, whom, if British,
he had the power to impress.

The United States did not refuse to recognize, distinctly if not
fully, the embarrassment under which Great Britain labored by losing
the services of her seamen at a moment of such national exigency; and
it was prepared to offer many concessions in municipal regulations, in
order to exclude British subjects from American vessels. Various
propositions were advanced looking to the return of deserters and to
the prevention of enlistments; coupled always with a renunciation of
the British claim to take persons from under the American flag. There
had been much negotiation by individual ministers of the United States
in the ordinary course of their duties; beginning as far back as 1787,
when John Adams had to remonstrate vigorously with the Cabinet
"against this practice, which has been too common, of impressing
American citizens, and especially with the aggravating circumstances
of going on board American vessels, which ought to be protected by the
flag of their sovereign."[138] Again, in 1790, on hostilities
threatening with S