re was dishonored, if
acquiescence were yielded to an infringement of personal liberty,
except as conceded by obligations of treaty, or by the general law of
nations. Within British waters, the United States suffered no wrong by
the impressment of British subjects--the enforcement of local
municipal law--on board American vessels; and although it was
suggested that such visits should not be made, and that an arriving
crew should be considered to have the nationality of their ship, this
concession, if granted, would have been a friendly limitation by Great
Britain of her own municipal jurisdiction. It therefore could not be
urged upon the British Government by a nation which took its stand
resolutely upon the supremacy of its own municipal rights, on board
its merchant shipping on the high seas.

It is to be noted, furthermore, that the voice of the people in the
United States, the pressure of influence upon the Government, was not
as unanimous as that exerted upon the British Ministry. The feeling of
the country was divided; and, while none denied the grievous wrong
done when an American was impressed, a class, strong at least in
intellectual power, limited its demands to precautions against such
mistakes and to redress when they occurred. The British claim to
search, with the object of impressing British subjects, was considered
by these men to be valid. Thus Gouverneur Morris, who on a
semi-official visit to London in 1790 had had occasion to remonstrate
upon the impressment of Americans in British ports, and who, as a
pamphleteer, had taken strong ground against the measures of the
British Government injurious to American commerce, wrote as follows in
1808 about the practice of seizing British subjects in American ships:
"That we, the people of America, should engage in ruinous warfare to
support a rash opinion, that foreign sailors in our merchant ships are
to be protected against the power of their sovereign, is downright
madness." "Why not," he wrote again in 1813, while the war was raging,
"waiving flippant debate, lay down the broad principle of national
right, on which Great Britain takes her native seamen from our
merchant ships? Let those who deny the right pay, suffer, and fight,
to compel an abandonment of the claim. Men of sound mind will see, and
men of sound principle will acknowledge, its existence." In his
opinion, there was but one consistent course to be pursued by those
who favored the war with Gre