a man or two hit. Long
after the war, Captain James Chever, again a peaceful merchant mariner,
met at Valparaiso, Sir James Thompson, commander of the British frigate
Dublin, which had been fitted out in 1813 for the special purpose of
chasing the America. In the course of a cordial chat between the two
captains the Briton remarked:

"I was once almost within gun-shot of that infernal Yankee
skimming-dish, just as night came on. By daylight she had outsailed
the Dublin so devilish fast that she was no more than a speck on the
horizon. By the way, I wonder if you happen to know the name of the
beggar that was master of her."

"I'm the beggar," chuckled Captain Chever, and they drank each other's
health on the strength of it.

Although the Treaty of Ghent omitted mention of the impressment of
sailors, which had been the burning issue of the war, there were no more
offenses of this kind. American seafarers were safe against kidnapping
on their own decks, and they had won this security by virtue of their
own double-shotted guns. At the same time England lifted the curse of
the press-gang from her own people, who refused longer to endure it.

There seemed no reason why the two nations, having finally fought their
differences to a finish, should not share the high seas in peaceful
rivalry; but the irritating problems of protection and reciprocity
survived to plague and hamper commerce. It was difficult for England
to overcome the habit of guarding her trade against foreign invasion.
Agreeing with the United States to waive all discriminating duties
between the ports of the two countries--this was as much as she was at
that time willing to yield. She still insisted upon regulating the trade
of her West Indies and Canada. American East Indiamen were to be limited
to direct voyages and could not bring cargoes to Europe. Though this
discrimination angered Congress, to which it appeared as lopsided
reciprocity, the old duties were nevertheless repealed; and then,
presto! the British colonial policy of exclusion was enforced and eighty
thousand tons of American shipping became idle because the West India
market was closed.

There followed several years of unhappy wrangling, a revival of the old
smuggling spirit, the risk of seizure and confiscations, and shipping
merchants with long faces talking ruin. The theory of free trade versus
protection was as debatable and opinions were as conflicting then as
now. Some were for retal