s second war with England was fought in behalf of merchant seamen
and they played a nobly active part in it. The ruthless impressment
of seamen was the most conspicuous provocation, but it was only one
of many. Two years before hostilities were openly declared, British
frigates were virtually blockading the port of New York, halting and
searching ships as they pleased, making prizes of those with French
destinations, stealing sailors to fill their crews, waging war in
everything but name, and enjoying the sport of it. A midshipman of
one of them merrily related: "Every morning at daybreak we set about
arresting the progress of all the vessels we saw, firing off guns to the
right and left to make every ship that was running in heave to or wait
until we had leisure to send a boat on board to see, in our lingo, what
she was made of. I have frequently known a dozen and sometimes a couple
of dozen ships lying a league or two off the port, losing their fair
wind, their tide, and worse than all, their market for many hours,
sometimes the whole day, before our search was completed."

The right of a belligerent to search neutral vessels for contraband of
war or evidence of a forbidden destination was not the issue at stake.
This was a usage sanctioned by such international law as then existed.
It was the alleged right to search for English seamen in neutral vessels
that Great Britain exercised, not only on the high seas but even in
territorial waters, which the American Government refused to recognize.
In vain the Government had endeavored to protect its sailors from
impressment by means of certificates of birth and citizenship. These
documents were jeered at by the English naval lieutenant and his
boarding gang, who kidnapped from the forecastle such stalwart tars as
pleased their fancy. The victim who sought to inform an American consul
of his plight was lashed to the rigging and flogged by a boatswain's
mate. The files of the State Department, in 1807, had contained the
names of six thousand American sailors who were as much slaves and
prisoners aboard British men-of-war as if they had been made captives by
the Dey of Algiers. One of these incidents, occurring on the ship Betsy,
Captain Nathaniel Silsbee, while at Madras in 1795, will serve to show
how this brutal business was done.

"I received a note early one morning from my chief mate that one of my
sailors, Edward Hulen, a fellow townsman whom I had known from boyhood,