Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/456

 1792 to 1814 must not be considered such as the nation would have approved of if at peace, but rather as warlike measures, presumed to be necessary for the welfare, and, indeed, for the very existence of the nation. England being the nearest and most powerful enemy of France, as well as the financial supporter of all the other nations then leagued against her, it is not surprising that French statesmen should have passed such laws as had special reference to the injury of her maritime commerce and her power at sea; and that those laws should have been thought to display a spirit of revenge and hatred, though in reality they were merely counter-*parts of our own.

Consequently, Article 3 of the law of the 21st September, 1793, enacted that "No foreign commodities, productions, or merchandise, shall be imported into France, or into the possessions or colonies of France, except directly in French vessels, or in vessels belonging to the inhabitants of the countries in which the articles imported grew, were produced or manufactured, or from the ordinary ports of sale or exportation." All officers and three-fourths of the crew were required to be natives of the country of which the foreign vessel bore the flag, under penalty of the confiscation of the ship and cargo, and a fine of 300 livres, enforceable under pain of imprisonment, jointly and severally, against owners, consignees, and agents of the vessel and cargo, as well as against the captain and mate. Article 4, copied from the most ancient laws of France, ordained that foreign vessels should not carry from one French port to another any commodities, produc