Loss of British Vessels

"Commerce will open the door to emigration. By constant intercommunication, America will every day approach more and more to Europe. North America has become a new primary planet, which, while it takes its own course in its own orbit, must shift the common centre of gravity. These sovereigns of Europe, who shall find this new empire crossing all their settled maxims and accustomed measures, will call upon their ministers and raise men 'Come, curse me this people, for they are too mighty for me!' These statesmen will be dumb, but he spirit of truth will answer: 'How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed.'. Those sovereigns of Europe, who shall call upon their ministers to state to them things as they really do exist in nature, shall form the earliest, the most sure and natural connection with North America, as being, what she is an independent state. The new empire of America is like a giant ready to run its course. The fostering care with which the rival powers of Europe will nurse it, insure its establishment beyond all doubt or danger."

These significant words were uttered at the beginning of 1780, when the league of leading nations of Europe, known as the "Armed Neutrality" against the pretensions of Great Britain as "Mistress of the Seas," was about to be consummated. That league had been in a formative state many months. It was conceived in the summer of 1778, when British cruisers seized American vessels engaged in commerce with Russia, in the Baltic Sea. Russia was-then assuming colossal proportions among the European powers. They all courted the friendship of her empress, Catharine, who was talented and powerful; and Great Britain tried to induce her to become its ally against France. Catharine coquetted with that government a long time, while her sympathies were with Sweden, Denmark and Holland, whose neutral ships were continually interfered with by British sea-rovers, and whose acts were justified by their government. The French monarch, by a master-stroke of policy, had gained the good-will of the northern maritime powers, by a proclamation of protection to all neutral vessels going to or from a hostile port with contraband goods, whose value did not exceed three-fourths that of the whole cargo. That was in the summer of 1778. From that time, until the opening of 1780, the insolence of British cruisers, and the tone of the British ministers, offended the northern powers. That tone was generally deprecatory and disparaging. "When the Dutch," said Lord North, "say 'We maritime powers,' it reminds me of the cobbler who lived next door to the Lord Mayor, and used to say 'My neighbor and I.'" Official language was sometimes equally offensive. When the Dutch complained of interference with their commerce and appealed to treaties in support of their claims as neutrals, the British minister at the Hague said: "For the present, treaty or no treaty, England will not suffer materials for ship-building to be taken by the Dutch to any French port." A similar tone was indulged in toward the other northern powers, excepting Russia; but the shrewd Catharine, perceiving the commercial interests of her realm to be involved in the maintenance of the neutral rights of others, after long coquetting with Great Britain, assumed the attitude of defender of those rights before all the world. Early in March, 1780, she issued a declaration, the substance of which was (I) That neutral ships shall enjoy free navigation from port to port, and on the coasts of belligerent powers; (2) That free ships free all goods except contraband; (3) That contraband are arms and ammunition of war, and nothing else; (4) That no port is blockaded unless the enemy's ships, in adequate number, are near enough to make the entry dangerous.

It was declared that those principles should rule decisions on the legality of prizes; and that state paper said: "In manifesting these principles before all Europe, Her Imperial Majesty is firmly resolved to maintain them. She has therefore given an order to fit out a considerable portion of her naval forces, to act as her honor, her interest, and necessity may require."