Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/82

70 trade of neutrals was crushed as between two millstones. Indeed, these measures were purposely directed by the two great belligerents as much against neutral trade as against one another. Great Britain would not let her maritime commerce slip out of her grasp to build up a commercial rival sailing under a neutral flag. She would therefore permit no trading at all except on condition that it should go through her hands, or “through British ports where a transit duty was levied for the British treasury.” Napoleon, on the other hand, desired to constrain the neutrals, especially the United States, to become his active allies, by forcing upon them the alternative: either allies or enemies. There must be no neutrals, or if there were, they must have no rights. Thus American ships were taken and condemned by both parties in great numbers, and American maritime trade was suffering terribly. But this was not all. British men-of-war stopped American vessels on the high seas, and even in American waters, to search them for British subjects or for men they chose to consider as such, whom they pressed into the British naval service. A large number of these were Americans, not a few of whom refused to serve under the British flag, and horrible stories were told of the dungeons into which they were thrown, and of the cruelties they had to suffer.

The steps taken by the United States to protect their neutral rights were those of a peace-loving power not over-confident of its own strength. Mad-