Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/286

 now felt it prudent to withdraw for a while from office; his retirement being, no doubt, greatly induced by the differences between him and the King respecting Catholic Emancipation. His influence, however, and the policy he had unflinchingly pursued, continued to guide the councils of the Addington administration which succeeded him.

It was then that the question of neutral rights, originally promulgated by Catherine of Russia in 1780, first seriously attracted the attention of those nations of Europe who were not directly involved in the war, and especially of the United States of America, now fast becoming a power of no mean importance, and one, even then, prepared to assert her rights. These powers indignantly repudiated the claims which England, under Pitt, had enforced. They alleged that the accidents of war ought not to interfere with the trade of those not engaged in it; and that they were justified in possessing themselves of such carrying trade as the belligerents had been obliged to relinquish. Holding these views, they claimed the right of frequenting freely all the ports of the world, and of passing to and fro between those of the belligerent nations; thus traversing from France and Spain to England, from England to Spain and France, and (what was still more disputable) of going from the colonies to the mother-countries, as for instance, from Mexico to Spain. They resolutely maintained the principle that "the flag covers the merchandise;" that the flag of neutrals sheltered from search the merchandise transported in their vessels; that in such vessels French merchandise could not be seized by the English, nor English