and great depredations.
Outrages on the Americans.
In the West Indies the most audacious scenes of depredation were exhibited; so much so that the conduct of the public agents and of the commissioned cruisers surpassed all former examples. American vessels were not only captured under the French decrees, but when brought to trial in the French tribunals, they with their cargoes were condemned, without admitting the owners or their agents to make any defence. Indeed a system of spoliation seems to have been brought into practice for the obvious purpose of insuring condemnations. By a monstrous abuse in judicial proceedings, frauds and falsehoods, as well as flimsy and shameless pretexts, passed unexamined and uncontradicted, and were made the foundation of sentences of condemnation. American citizens were beaten, insulted, and imprisoned; and even their prisoners of war were exchanged with the British for Frenchmen. American property going to or coming from neutral ports was seized, and in many cases forcibly taken when destined for France, or actually in French ports, without any pretence whatever, except that the French required it for their own purposes.
Torture practised by French cruisers.
Nor did their wanton and outrageous conduct against the Americans stop here. Many accounts are extant of attempts to effect condemnations by bribing the officers and seamen of the American vessels to swear falsely; and it was further reserved for those days, when offered bribes were refused, and threats despised, to endeavour to accomplish the object by torture. In a protest set forth by Captain Martin, master of the Cincinnatus, a vessel of about two hundred and twenty-nine tons, belonging to Baltimore, the fact of torture having been resorted to by the French cruisers appears to be placed beyond all doubt.[315] In this protest he states that while on his voyage from Baltimore to London he was boarded by a French armed brig under English colours, when he with five of his crew were taken on board, and though the vessel’s papers when examined left no doubt of the nationality of his ship and cargo, being American, the officer in command of the French brig insisted that the cargo was English property, and assured Martin that if he would admit the fact, and formally acknowledge it, his full freight should be paid, and he should have a present of one thousand pounds. But the overture was spurned, the master declaring the whole to belong solely to Aquilla Brown of Baltimore, merchant. “Whereupon the French officers thumb-screwed the said master in the cabin of their said brig, and kept him in torture to extort a declaration that the said cargo was English property, for nearly four hours, but without the desired effect.” A vessel heaving in sight, Martin was liberated, but it was not until the Cincinnatus reached the English Channel that she was relieved by H.M.S. Galatea, and finally reached Dover. Mr. Rufus King, minister of the United States in London, personally examined Captain Martin’s thumbs, and said “they still bear the marks of the torturing screws, and the scars will go with him to the grave.”[316]
The advantages of the war to the Americans.
But with all these drawbacks to the progress and success of American shipping, and the great disadvantages to which neutrals are exposed during a state of war, which often counterbalance the advantages they enjoy of seizing upon the carrying trade of the world, it cannot be denied that the memorable revolution of France in 1789, and the wars consequent upon the events, created a vast demand for American exports, and secured for the Americans a very considerable portion of the carrying trade of Europe. They not only carried the colonial productions to the several parent states, but they also became the purchasers of them in the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies. A new era was indeed established in their commercial history, and their merchants and shipowners increased in numbers to an extent out of all proportion to the general state of the population.
Impulse given to shipping.
Many persons who had realised moderate capitals from mercantile and other pursuits now become daring adventurers as carriers by sea [there being no trading companies, whose monopolies have a withering effect upon individual enterprise], the practice became common for Americans to frequently change their pursuits, a practice springing out of a native energy of the people still prevailing. Foreigners were admitted without reservation to all the privileges of the citizens of the United States, although the government carefully excluded them from any participation ostensibly in the benefits arising from the possession of ships. No aliens were permitted to be either sole or part owners of American vessels. The predominant spirit of that period had a powerful effect in determining the character of the rising generation, and the brilliant prospects held out by maritime enterprise led them to neglect for a time the mechanical and manufacturing branches of industry.
Progress of American civilisation.