Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/379

 waging internecine war against each other, the people of England and France were famishing alike for want of food. Should such circumstances again arise, it is not easy to suppose, much less to hope, that nations so powerful at sea as Great Britain, with their people thus suffering, would be bound by any compact that stopped the supply from America or elsewhere; and it is almost as futile to hope that they would relinquish their power of hampering their enemies' commerce at sea unless it were stipulated that neutral nations are bound to enforce the compact. Though England still stands first as a maritime power, and has consequently at her disposal the most extensive means of destroying an enemy's maritime commerce, she has, on the other hand, by far the largest amount of property of any nation at all times afloat, and must therefore be the largest sufferer in the event of hostilities with any power which can equip a fleet of privateers. Consequently, it was hoped by a large portion of the English people, when the American government in 1856 declined to become parties to the declaration of the European Powers assembled in conference at Paris, unless all private property was made free from capture at sea, that Great Britain would have readily acquiesced in the proposal.

This policy did not, however, suit France in 1797; and to show in a practical manner their displeasure at the treaty into which the United States had entered with England, the French republic issued in the same year the circular, already incidentally noticed, in which they announced that the conduct of France towards neutrals