ty. This was the seizure and
impressment of men employed on board neutral vessels, and
compelling them to enter the navy of a foreign country. The
crew, being mustered on the deck, Captain Cochrane selected
the ablest hands from among them--taking them on a service
in which they not only had no interest, but with which some
of them were actually at variance, and might, therefore, be
compelled to fight against their own country.

"It is not the least strange, of all the strange events which
have occurred in those days of change, that a young man, a
passenger on board an American ship, and who was brought by
circumstances in contact with the practical operation of the
iniquitous claim which Great Britain set up--of taking out of
vessels sailing under the American flag any person they
pleased--should have been called upon subsequently, when upon
the throne of France, by the English Government to disavow
the forcible abduction of a seaman from an English ship."

Many years after this, when Louis Philippe was king of the French, a
French frigate, from a squadron blockading Vera Cruz, boarded an
English packet-ship, and took out of her a Mexican pilot. All England
resounded with a burst of indignation. Both Houses of Parliament
passed a decree that such an act was a gross outrage upon the British
flag, which demanded immediate apology from the French Government.

"The pilot," said Lord Lyndhurst, "had come on board, under the
protection of the British flag. But in this instance it was no
protection. A more grave and serious outrage was never committed
against our country."

"Any man," said Lord Brougham, "on board a British merchantman is as
much under the protection of the British flag as if he were on board
the queen's ship. The gravemen of the charge is _that a man has been
taken from an English ship_."

Louis Philippe, who deemed it essential to the stability of his
throne to maintain friendly relations with the British Government,
humbly disavowed the act in the name of his country, while he
considerately forbore from taunting the British Government with its
own opposite and arbitrary course, or from congratulating it upon the
happy change of principles which it had so suddenly experienced.

Captain Cochrane, learning that the Duke of Orleans, with his
brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and Count Beaujolais, were on board
the small and uncomfortable A