As the Edinburgh Review for November, 1812, admitted, “they were dispersed in the remotest quarter of the globe, and not only exposed to the perils of service, but shut out, by their situation, from all hope of ever being reclaimed.” They were doomed to slavery for life.
How the indignation was of slow growth—so slow, indeed, that it needed the outrages of the Barbary pirates to stir it even to the feeblest blaze—has already been told in the story of the origin of the new navy. But at last a majority of two was found for a resolution of the Congress declaring that a seaside nation ought to have a navy, and so a navy was built—a navy so small in numbers as to be absolutely insignificant when compared with that whose “supremacy is in fact a part of the law of nations.” It was built of American oak, manned by American seamen, and sent afloat with the American flag flying from every mast. It did good—it did the best kind of work—but when the Barbary pirates were cowed it was reduced “to a peace footing.” There was never an effort made with it to resent the enslaving of American seamen. So the aggressions increased continually. And the politicians talked. They talked about the illegal confiscation of American ships under the decrees and orders of the French and English governments—they were more concerned about the dollars than the liberties of the people—and finally when war seemed inevitable, they seriously discussed the advisability of abandoning the seacoast to the expected invaders! The chatter about no European enemy being able to find a permanent footing on the broad American soil, where so many millions of freemen were to be ready with squirrel rifles and shotguns to repel him, was quite as common at the beginning of the nineteenth century as it is at the end of it. The word “jingo” was not in use in those days. But the men who asserted that government existed solely in order that the power of the whole people should be exerted to protect every individual in all his rights wherever in the wide world he might find himself, heard plenty of equally opprobrious epithets applied to them. And the utmost that was done for the sake of national honor was the building of a lot of boats for “harbor-defence.”
And then came a day when, to the injury that had been done unceasingly, was added insult, the memory of which to this day brings the hot blush of shame as well as the flood-tide of indignation to the brow of every American patriot.
It was on the 16th of November, 1798. As the reader will remember, this nation was then actually at war with France, although no formal declaration of war had been made. The French ship Croyable, of fourteen guns, had been captured, taken into the American service under the name of Retaliation, and recaptured by the French ship Insurgent. Because of these troubles a fleet of sixty American merchant ships had gathered at Havana to await a convoy, and the Constellation, Capt. Thomas Truxton, and the Baltimore, Capt. Isaac Phillips, were sent to bring them home.
This service having been performed in satisfactory manner, the Baltimore was sent alone to convoy a smaller fleet from Charleston back to Havana.
On November 16, 1798, while en route on this passage, the convoy fell in with a British squadron consisting of two seventy-four-gun ships-of-the-line, one ninety-eight-gun ship-of-the-line, and two thirty-two-gun frigates. Because both Great Britain and the United States were then at war with France, the two nations were, of course, allies at this time. Nevertheless, knowing that the British ships were sure to be anxious for more sailors, Captain Phillips signalled his fleet to square away before the wind, and so get out of reach, while he bore up to have a talk with the Englishmen.
On arriving near the flagship—the Carnatic, Captain Loring—Captain Phillips pulled over to her in his gig. He was received with the usual civilities, and then was coolly informed that every man on board the Baltimore who did not carry the government certificate that he was an American citizen would be impressed into the British service.
A ship of the American navy was to be treated as merchant ships had been treated.
Captain Phillips protested, and said he would surrender his ship first. Then he returned to the Baltimore, where he found a British lieutenant already on deck and mustering the crew.
No form of protest was of any avail. Everything said or done excited only the contemptuous smile of the lieutenant, and in the end, being overpowered by the great ship-of-the-line squadron, Captain Phillips had the humiliation of seeing five of his men impressed in the British service.