THE

CHAPTER XII.

RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND.

HE close of the Revolutionary War left Great Britain and her former colonies in a state of mutual irritability, which unfortunately, the circumstances of the time presented abundant opportuni

ial system.

ties to increase. According to the colonial European colonsystem then practiced by every country in Europe, the mother country compelled her colonies to trade with her. They looked to her for protection, and she in turn, compelled them to give her the profits of their trade.

Commercial re

England after the Revolution.

The colonial system of England naturally resulted in changing profoundly the commercial relations of the United States to that country after the close of the war. While the United States were colonies, they enjoyed unrestricted trade with other Eng- lations with lish colonies, but when they became independent, England at once, and naturally, from her point of view, began to impose restrictions upon their trade, where she did not prohibit it altogether. To the people of this country this seemed a piece of pure vindictiveness. Failing to place themselves at the point of view of England, they regarded what was really a quite modified form of her colonial system-modified because of inex

orable circumstances in favor of the United States, as a wanton infliction of injury.

Opportunities for misunderstanding on the part of England were also not wanting. In the treaty of peace

treaty of peace.

at the close of the Revolution, the United States agreed to recommend the states to repeal the laws confiscating the estates of tories. Though it was well Breaches of the understood at the time that Congress had only recommendatory power, England chose to forget it. And while Congress kept faith with England by recommending action in harmony with the treaty, England chose to regard the failure of the states to comply with the recommendation as a breach of it. Accordingly, she still kept possession of the northwest posts, and persistently refused to make compensation for the negroes carried away at the close of the war. Not only did she keep possession of the posts; she exercised severeignty over the immediately surrounding territory and on numerous occasions, indicated a disposition to retain them permanently. This was sufficiently irritating. But it was made much more so by the fact that she was suspected of using opportunities which she possessed by violating her treaty to stir up the Indians against us.

Indians.

Whether she did or not, and if so, to what England and the extent, are matters into which we need not here inquire. Taking human nature as we find it, it would have been natural for her agents to do it, and, in any case, inevitable, for the people of this

country to suspect them of doing it. Further, Americans suspected her of inducing Portugal to make a treaty with Algiers that let her pirates out of the Mediterranean, and permitted them to capture defenseless American vessels in the Atlantic by the score.

Such in general were the relations between this country and England when the French Revolution put every monarchy in Europe to the necessity of defending itself against the new theory of the Rights of Man, backed by the soldiers of France. To the monarchs of Europe the French seemed outlaws. What respectable and conservative people in this country today think of anarchists, the conservative people of Europe thought of the French. But the people of this country were notorious sympathizers with France. The attitude of England toward France, therefore, naturally increased the irritation of this country towards England; the attitude of the United States toward France, naturally increased the irritability of England toward this country.

Treaty between

These various causes put the two countries in such a position with reference to each other, as would have made it difficult under any circumstances, to avoid a collision. But this difficulty was increased immeasurably by the fact that England, Russia and Engand the other countries at war with France, took an attitude towards her, to which the United States could not consent without, in effect, joining them in the war against France. Regarding the French Revolution

land in 1793.

as anarchy, and the French as outlaws against the human race, England and Russia made a treaty in 1793 in which they in effect agreed to ignore all the rules and usages of international law, in their warfare against them, and to compel other nations, to do the same. Accordingly, they began to put in practice a system that was intended to starve out the French, and compel them to submit. During the summer of 1793, England made six treaties with different nations, stipulating that the contracting parties should stop all provisions going to France. In June of that year, England gave instructions to her ships of war to stop all neutral vessels laden with flour, corn, or meal bound to the ports of France, and send them into British ports. The provisions were to be purchased by the government, and the ships released when they had given security not to go to any country not in

England provision order.

amity with Great Britain.

Whether the United States would have been bound to submit to such regulations, if they had taken the English view of the French Revolution, is a question. into which we need not now inquire. The government of Denmark made an able argument against the EnglishRussian system, on the supposition that the view on which it was based was correct. But with the American view of the French Revolution there was but one thing to be done: Protest against the English provision order, and in the last resort, make the protest effective by some sort of forcible appeal to the self-interest of England.

Before this difficulty was adjusted, England added to the grievances of which this country complained, by what the United States regarded as a new invasion of their rights. In time of peace, France enforced the colonial system as vigorously as any country in Europe. But when she was engaged in war with England, she was obliged to open the ports of her colonies to the commerce of all the world. England's supremacy at sea would have made the enforcement of the system a positive contribution to her own resources. Moreover, it would have prevented her colonies from buying what they needed, and would have deprived them of a market for their surplus produce. Accordingly, when she was engaged in war with England, France abandoned for the time her colonial system, since the fleets of England made it impossible for her colonies to trade with her.

In 1756, England began to put in practice a principle which was thereafter known as the Rule of the War of 1756-that trade which was unlawful in peace was unlawful in war. Regarding the temporary abandonment of her colonial system on the part of France as an attempt to protect herself against the British fleet, England determined not to Rule of the War submit to it. She declared that a trade that was illegal in time of peace was illegal in time of war, and that vessels were liable to confiscation that engaged in it. On the top of the provision order then, of June, 1793, in November of that year England

of 1756.