In another letter to the same minister, dated October 12, 1792, he calls attention to a case of special outrage.
“I enclose you a copy of a letter from Messrs. Blow and Melhaddo, merchants of Virginia, complaining of the taking away of their sailors on the coast of Africa by the commander of a British armed vessel. So many instances of this kind have happened, that it is quite necessary that their Government should explain themselves on the subject, and be led to disavow and punish such conduct.”[45]
At a later day, also under the administration of Washington, Mr. Pickering, at that time Secretary of State, in a letter to Rufus King, Minister at London, dated June 8, 1796, after repeating the rule proposed by Mr. Jefferson, says:—
“But it will be an important point gained, if, on the high seas, our flag can protect those, of whatever nation, who shall sail under it. And for this humanity, as well as interest, powerfully pleads.”[46]
The same pretension was put forth under the administration of John Adams, and was again encountered. Mr. Marshall, afterwards the venerated Chief Justice of the United States, and at the time Secretary of State, in his instructions to Rufus King, at London, dated September 20, 1800, says:—
“The impressment of our seamen is an injury of very serious magnitude, which deeply affects the feelings and the honor of the nation.… Alien seamen, not British subjects, engaged in our merchant service, ought to be equally exempt with citizens.… Britain has no pretext of right to their persons or to their service. To tear them, then, from our possession is at the same time an insult and an injury. It is an act of violence for which there exists no palliative.”[47]
The same pretension showed itself constantly under the administration of Mr. Jefferson. Throughout the eight years of his Presidency, the repeated outrages of British cruisers never for a moment allowed it to be forgotten. Mr. Madison, during this full period, was Secretary of State, and none of the varied productions of his pen are more masterly than those in which he exposed this tyranny. In the course of the discussion he showed the special hardship found in the fact that sailors were taken from the ship at the mere will of an officer, without any form of judicial proceedings, and thus early presented against the pretension of Great Britain the precise objection now adopted by her. Here are his emphatic words, in the celebrated instructions to Mr. Monroe, our Minister at London, dated January 5, 1804:—
“Taking reason and justice for the tests of this practice, it is peculiarly indefensible, because it deprives the dearest rights of persons of a regular trial, to which the most inconsiderable article of property captured on the high seas is entitled, and leaves their destiny to the will of an officer, sometimes cruel, often ignorant, and generally interested, by his want of mariners, in his own decisions. Whenever property found in a neutral vessel is supposed to be liable, on any grounds, to capture and condemnation, the rule in all cases is, that the question shall not be decided by the captor, but be carried before a legal tribunal, where a regular trial may be had, and where the captor himself is liable to damages for an abuse of his power. Can it be reasonable, then, or just, that a belligerent commander, who is thus restricted and thus responsible in a case of mere property of trivial amount, should be permitted, without recurring to any tribunal whatever, to examine the crew of a neutral vessel, to decide the important question of their respective allegiances, and to carry that decision into instant execution, by forcing every individual he may choose into a service abhorrent to his feelings, cutting him off from his most tender connections, exposing his mind and his person to the most humiliating discipline, and his life itself to the greatest dangers? Reason, justice, and humanity unite in protesting against so extravagant a proceeding.”[48]
Negotiations on this principle, thus distinctly enunciated, were intrusted at London to James Monroe, afterwards President of the United States, and William Pinkney, the most accomplished master of Prize Law our country has produced. But they were unsuccessful. Great Britain persisted. In reply to a proposal of the British commissioners, as reported in a joint letter to Mr. Madison, dated at London, September 11, 1806, the plenipotentiaries declared,—