admiralty. Many of them were corrupt, all were unfit for
the duty, and our vessels were condemned and pillaged. The crews were
made prisoners, and in many cases thrown into loathsome and unhealthy
places of confinement, while the ships were left to rot in the
harbors. The tale of the outrages and miseries thus inflicted on
citizens of the United States without any warning, and by a nation
considered to be at peace with us, fills an American with shame and
anger even to-day. If our people remonstrated, they were told that
England meant to have no neutrals, and that six of their frigates
could blockade our coast. A course of kind treatment would have made
us the friends of Great Britain, but the experiment was not even
tried. The truth was that we were weak, and this was not only a
misfortune but apparently an unpardonable sin. England could not
conquer us, but she could harry our coasts, and let loose her Indians
on our borders; and we had no navy with which to retaliate. She meant
that there should be no neutrals, and so adopted a policy which would
make us the active ally of France. It was no answer to say, what was
perfectly true, that French privateers preyed upon our commerce with
that fine indifference to rights and treaties which characterized
the governments of the Revolution. If both sides maltreated us, the
natural course was to unite with the power to which we at least owed a
debt of gratitude.

About the same time a speech was reported from Quebec, in which Lord
Dorchester told the Indians that they should soon take the war-path
for England against the United States. Lord Grenville denied in
Parliament, and subsequently to Jay, that the ministry had ever taken
any step to incite the Indians against the United States, and the
authenticity of Lord Dorchester's utterances has been questioned in
later days; but it was not disavowed at the time, even by Hammond in
a sharp correspondence which he held on that and other topics with
Randolph. The speech, as is now known and proved, was probably made,
whether it was authorized or not, and it was universally accepted at
the moment as both true and authoritative.

This menace of desolating savage war in the West, in addition to the
unquestioned outrages to our seamen, the loss of our ships, and the
destruction of our commerce, with consequent ruin to all our seaboard
towns, led to a general outburst of indignation from men of all
parties, and Congress began to prepar