The breeze came on very quickly; it filled our sails; we heard the rippling of the water under our bows; and as our motion through the water became perceptible we saw that our unwelcome visitors had stopped rowing. They saw that we were in motion, and pursuit was of no further use.
When we were within about two hundred miles of Canton we were caught in the outer edge of a hurricane; but so completely were we on the edge of it that it neither alarmed nor damaged us. We reached Whampoa Anchorage, at the mouth of Pearl River, the stream on which Canton stands, without accident of any sort. Here we discharged our cargo, and took in one for home. It consisted principally of tea and silks; a great deal of the former, and not much of the latter. I wanted very much to go up the river and see Canton, but all requests for liberty on shore were denied, at least, so far as Canton was concerned. The larboard watch had half a day in the foreign quarter of Whampoa, and the starboard watch had the same allowance, but, of course, not at the same time. From what I saw of the Chinese during my single visit to land I did not think they would be an agreeable people to live among. Perhaps they are better at Canton; but of course I cannot say anything upon this point from actual knowledge.
In due time our cargo was completed, and the hatches were closed and battened down; then we laid in our supply of water and such provisions as we needed, and the very day that all was ready we had a fine wind down the bay and out into the China Sea. Everything favored us on the way home, and in due time we sailed into Boston Harbor; and my voyage to China came to an end.
My next voyage was to the West Indies; in fact, I made several voyages there, and should have made more of them had it not been for the difficulties which arose between France and England on the one hand, and the United States on the other.
On one occasion the brig on which I was serving was seized by the British authorities in a West Indian port, and the cargo was confiscated for a technical violation of the laws. The confiscation of the ship, as well as the cargo, was threatened; but we succeeded in saving her, and obtaining permission to leave port. On our way home we were chased, and narrowly escaped capture, by a French ship-of-war. We were at peace with France at that time, and also with England; but England and France were at war, and they made it very annoying and risky business for neutrals to trade with either of them. In November, 1806, Napoleon issued from his camp in the capital of Prussia the famous manifesto which is called the Berlin Decree. It declared the ports of the whole of the British dominions in a state of blockade, prohibited all correspondence and commerce with the British Islands, ordered that all letters or packets written in England or to an Englishman in the English language should be seized at French post-offices, and proclaimed that all neutral vessels trading with England should be liable to seizure and confiscation. As a retaliation for this, Great Britain issued an "Order in Council," which declared that the whole coast of Europe, from the Elbe in Germany to Brest in France, was in a state of blockade, and making orders in regard to neutrals similar to those enacted by the Berlin Decree. Of course these two orders affected American commerce very seriously, as it virtually cut off our trade with the two countries with which nearly all our commerce was concerned.
In December, 1807, Napoleon issued another decree at Milan, which was more rigorous, indeed, than that issued from Berlin. It declared every vessel which should submit to being searched by the British cruisers, or should pay any tax, duty, or license money to the British government, or should be found on the high seas or elsewhere, bound to or from any British port, denationalized and forfeited. Spain and Holland issued the same orders; and the effect of these various decrees was to cripple American commerce, and leave its ships rotting in the harbors where they lay. When the decrees and orders were issued they took effect immediately; all vessels then in French ports were confiscated, and their owners were unable to obtain any redress for their loss.
When the news of these decrees and orders in council reached the United States, President Jefferson called Congress together earlier than usual, and sent a message to inform the members of what had occurred, and recommending the passage of an embargo act, "an inhibition of the departure of our vessels from the ports of the United States." The Senate passed the act laying an embargo on all shipping, foreign and domestic, in the ports of the United States, with specified exceptions, and ordering all vessels abroad to return home forthwith. The House passed the bill; and it was signed by the President, and became a law. It was an attempt to compel England and France to respect our rights by withholding all intercourse with them.
Looking back at it, I think it accomplished nothing, or a good deal worse than nothing. About fourteen months after its passage it was repealed; but at the same time Congress passed a law forbidding all commercial intercourse with France and England until the decrees and the orders in council had been set aside.
David and I had been getting on very well in our sea-faring lives down to this time. As long as we were sailors before the mast we kept together; but when the time for promotion came we were drawn apart. I had risen to the rank of second mate, and so had David; but we found ourselves without occupation for a considerable part of the time. We were also separated from our friends, Bill Haines and Joe Herne, and only met at rare intervals.