ers of them are
suffering sad privations."[246] Not the conscientious only, but the
unlucky. Unlike New York, North Carolina had not a friendly foreign
boundary nigh to her naval stores.

Under these circumstances the blow glanced from the British dominions.
At the first announcement of the embargo, prices of provisions and
lumber rose heavily in the West Indies; but reaction set in, as the
leaks in the dam became manifest and copious. The British Government
fostered the rebellious evasions of American citizens by a
proclamation, issued April 11, directing commanders of cruisers not to
interrupt any neutral vessel laden with provisions or lumber, going to
the West Indies; no matter to whom the property belonged, nor whether
the vessel had any clearance, or papers of any kind. A principal
method of eluding the embargo, Gallatin informed Jefferson, was by
loading secretly and going off without clearing. "Evasions are chiefly
effected by vessels going coastwise."[247] The two methods were not
incompatible. Besides the sea-going vessels already mentioned as lying
in New York alone, there were there over four hundred coasters. It was
impossible to watch so many. The ridiculous gunboats, identified with
this Administration, derisively nicknamed "Jeffs"[248] by the
unbelieving, were called into service to arrest the evil; but neither
their numbers nor their qualities fitted them to cope with the
ubiquity and speed of their nimble opponents. "The larger part of our
gunboats," wrote Commodore Shaw[249] from New Orleans, "are well known
to be dull sailers." "For enforcing the embargo," said Secretary
Gallatin, "gunboats are better calculated as a stationary force, and
for the purpose of stopping vessels in certain places, than for
pursuit."[250] A double bond was a mockery, when in West Indian ports
the cargo was worth from four to eight times what it was at the place
of loading. These were the palmier days of the embargo breakers; the
ease and frequency with which they escaped soon brought prices down.
Randolph, in the House, asserted that in the first four months of
embargo one hundred thousand barrels of flour had been shipped from
Baltimore alone; and the West India planters, besides opening new
sources of supply, devoted part of their ground to raising food. They
thus turned farmer, after the Jefferson ideal, supporting themselves
off their own grounds; an economical error, for sugar was their better
crop, but unavoidable i