ization
papers were easily procured by a few months' residence in any State
of the Union; and in default of legitimate papers, certificates of
citizenship could be bought for a song in any American seaport, where
shysters drove a thrifty traffic in bogus documents. Provided the
English navy took the precaution to have the description in his
certificate tally with his personal appearance, and did not let his
tongue betray him, he was reasonably safe from capture.

Facing the palpable fact that British seamen were deserting just when
they were most needed and were making American merchantmen and frigates
their asylum, the British naval commanders, with no very nice regard for
legal distinctions, extended their search for deserters to the decks of
American vessels, whether in British waters or on the high seas. If in
time of war, they reasoned, they could stop a neutral ship on the high
seas, search her for contraband of war, and condemn ship and cargo in a
prize court if carrying contraband, why might they not by the same token
search a vessel for British deserters and impress them into service
again? Two considerations seem to justify this reasoning: the trickiness
of the smart Yankees who forged citizenship papers, and the indelible
character of British allegiance. Once an Englishman always an
Englishman, by Jove! Your hound of a sea-dog might try to talk through
his nose like a Yankee, you know, and he might shove a dirty bit of
paper at you, but he couldn't shake off his British citizenship if he
wanted to! This was good English law, and if it wasn't recognized by
other nations so much the worse for them. As one of these redoubtable
British captains put it, years later: "'Might makes right' is the
guiding, practical maxim among nations and ever will be, so long as
powder and shot exist, with money to back them, and energy to wield
them." Of course, there were hair-splitting fellows, plenty of them, in
England and the States, who told you that it was one thing to seize a
vessel carrying contraband and have her condemned by judicial process in
a court of admiralty, and quite another thing to carry British subjects
off the decks of a merchantman flying a neutral flag; but if you knew
the blasted rascals were deserters what difference did it make? Besides,
what would become of the British navy, if you listened to all the
fine-spun arguments of landsmen? And if these stalwart blue-water
Britishers could have read what Thom