Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/416

1804. two measures which greatly disturbed the British envoy.

The first of these measures was an "Act for the more effectual preservation of peace in the ports and harbors of the United States." Under this law any United States marshal, on the warrant of any United States judge, was bound to board any British or other foreign ship-of-war lying in American waters, and seize every person charged with having violated the peace. If the marshal should be resisted, or if surrender was not made, he must call in the military power, and compel surrender by force of arms. If death should ensue, he should be held blameless; but the resisting party should be punished as for felonious homicide. Further, the President was authorized to interdict at will the ports of the United States to all or any armed vessels of a foreign nation; and to arrest and indict any foreign officer who should come within the jurisdiction after committing on the high seas "any trespass or tort, or any spoliation, on board any vessel of the United States, or any unlawful interruption or vexation of trading-vessels actually coming to or going from the United States."

Such laws were commonly understood in diplomacy as removing the subject in question from the field of negotiation, preliminary to reprisals and war. The act was passed with little debate in the last hours of the session, in the midst of the confusion which followed the acquittal of Judge Chase.