ving in the navy
covered, if it did not exceed, the number here voted.[237] It had not
been so once. Sir William Parker, an active frigate captain during ten
years of this period, wrote in 1805, "I dread the discharge of our
crew; for I do not think the miserable wretches with which the ships
lately fitted out were manned are equal to fight their ships in the
manner they are expected to do."[238] The high wages, which the
profits of the American merchant service enabled it to pay, outbade
all competition by the British navy. "Dollars for shillings," as the
expression ran. The embargo stopped all this, and equivalent
conditions did not return before the war. The American Minister to
France in 1811 wrote: "We complain with justice of the English
practice of pressing our seamen into their service. But the fact is,
and there is no harm in saying it, there are at present more American
seamen who seek that service than are forced into it."[239]

After the seamen followed the associated employments; those whose
daily labor was expended in occupations connected with transportation,
or who produced objects which men could not eat, or with which they
could dispense. Before the end of the year testimony came from every
quarter of the increase of suffering among the deserving poor; and not
they only, but those somewhat above them as gainers of a comfortable
living. They were for the most part helpless, except as helped by
their richer neighbors. Work for them there was not, and they could
not rebel. Not so with the seafarers, or the dwellers upon the
frontiers. On the great scale, of course, a sure enforcement of the
embargo was possible; the bulk of the shipping, especially the bigger,
was corralled and idle. In the port of New York, February 17, 1808,
lay 161 ships, 121 brigs, and 98 smaller sea-going vessels; in all 380
unoccupied, of which only 11 were foreign. In the much smaller port of
Savannah, at this early period there were 50. In Philadelphia, a year
later, 293, mostly of large tonnage for the period. "What is that huge
forest of dry trees that spreads itself before the town?" asked a
Boston journal. "You behold the masts of ships thrown out of
employment by the embargo."[240] "Our dismantled, ark-roofed vessels
are indeed decaying in safety at our wharves, forming a suitable
monument to the memory of our departed commerce. But where are your
seamen? Gone, sir! Driven into foreign exile in search of
subsistence."[241] Y