No American vessel had carried this rôle d'equipage since the end of the War of the Revolution; the decree was passed with the intention of driving all American ships from the sea. Then, as a final thrust at America, it was decreed that, October 29, 1799, American sailors found serving on the ships of enemies should be treated as pirates, and that they should not be allowed to plead in extenuation that they had been impressed.
The following stories of French aggressions illustrate well the usual course of life at sea in American ships during the period under consideration:—
In 1796 the French privateer Flying Fish came to Philadelphia, purchased supplies, and made repairs. In the meantime her captain, aided by the French consul, obtained information about all the ships then loading with valuable cargoes for foreign ports. With these facts in hand the captain then went to the Capes of the Delaware, waited until one of the most valuable of the American ships passed out to sea, and then captured her and turned her crew adrift in a small boat.
In the same year, while the American ship Hare was lying in London, with a valuable cargo on board, her captain went to Paris and arranged with the French Minister of Marine to bring her into French waters and have her condemned as a prize to him as captor. And this bargain was carried out.
Some Philadelphia merchants fitted out a vessel named Les Jumeaux as a French privateer. When going to sea she drove off a revenue cutter that tried to stop her, and she finally made a prize of a vessel belonging to neighbors of her owner.
The brigantine Patty, Captain Josiah Hempsted, belonging to Justus Riley, of Wethersfield, Connecticut, was captured while on her way to St. Bartholomew, on July 31, 1796. When Captain Hempsted appeared before the "special agent" (a sort of governor and judge in admiralty) ruling at Guadaloupe, that official shook his fist under the captain's nose, and said:—
"I have confiscated your vessel and cargo, you damned rascal."
The French frigate Thetis, having captured the brigantine Eliza, of New York, a seaman named Henry Doughty, a native-born citizen of Boston, was placed with a number of English sailors who had been captured, and was then delivered to the British in exchange for French sailors. Using American sailors in effecting exchanges became a common practice with the French naval commanders.
The crews of American vessels taken to the West Indies were commonly turned ashore without clothing (except what they were wearing), or food, or means of procuring either. On November 10, 1797, seven captured American vessels were lying at Petit Guave, three-fourths of the crews of which had died because of the hardships they had suffered when thus turned ashore. In some cases the crews were imprisoned. Captain Breard, of the schooner Zephyr, of Portsmouth, who ventured to go on board the privateer that had captured him and there beg for a little of the food of which he had been robbed, was thrown over the rail. Captain Codwise, of the brig Glasgow, was thrown into prison at Leogane and kept for thirty-six hours without food.
A more cheerful picture of the life at sea in American ships at that time is found in a letter (written in 1799) from Captain Elias Hasket Derby, Jr., to his father. The young man was in command of the Salem ship Mount Vernon, and he had arrived at Gibraltar after a passage of seventeen and a half days.