Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/351

 of bargain and sale as any other description of chattel property; the most ridiculous part of the system being, that after a transfer of this description it was no unusual thing to see produced by a sailor of colour a certificate for his protection, in which he was described to be of "a fair complexion, light hair and blue eyes!"

In all these indefensible proceedings the Americans held that a British subject, who by a false oath converted himself into an American citizen, or who naturalised himself in the United States, in conformity with their laws, ceased to owe allegiance to the king of his native country, and was entitled to their protection; and, in support of this strange doctrine, whenever this view was impeached, the American envoy merely replied that he had no instructions on that point. In the parliamentary discussions which took place upon the subject, Mr. A. Baring, with all his Whig tendencies and strong American predilections, while affecting to believe that the Russian campaign and Napoleon's intrigues had nothing to do with the declaration of war by the Americans, strongly maintained the English right of impressment, adding "that if there were sixteen hundred American seamen in our navy, there were more than sixteen thousand British seamen in the American navy;" and he*