man the British navy, a practice which they alleged was derogatory to them, and tended to destroy all cordial friendship between the two countries. In reply, the English government held that no State had such jurisdiction over its merchant vessels upon the high seas as to prevent a belligerent from searching them for contraband of war, or for the persons and property of enemies; and if, in the exercise of that right, the belligerents should discover on board of a neutral vessel any of their subjects who had withdrawn from their lawful allegiance, they asked upon what grounds could the neutral refuse to give them up.
But the public mind was so inflamed in the United States by stories of thousands of Americans forced to serve in the British Navy; of American ships upon the high seas deprived of their hands by British cruisers, and compelled to put into the nearest port for want of seamen to pursue the voyage; and of other outrages still more extraordinary and unpardonable, that, looking only to the alleged abuses of the right, their popular leaders went to the extreme of denying its existence altogether. A Bill upon this principle was consequently brought into Congress, but it was rejected by the Senate.[1]
A special mission sent to England. When, however, the American government determined to send a special mission to England for the adjustment of differences between the two nations, the British habit of impressing on the high seas was stated as the foremost of the American grievances, and their plenipotentiaries were instructed to urge
- ↑ Vide 'Annual Register,' 1806, p. 246.
