%228.  Sympathy for France; the French Craze.%—­Then began a long struggle for neutrality.  The Republicans were very angry at Washington and denounced him violently.  France, they said, had been our old friend; Great Britain had been our old enemy.  We had a treaty with France; we had none with Great Britain.  To treat her on the same footing with France was therefore a piece of base ingratitude to France.  A wave of sympathy for France swept over the country.  The French dress, customs, manners, came into use.  Republicans ceased to address each other as Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, Sir, or “Your Honor,” and used Citizen Smith and Citizen Jones.  The French tricolor with the red liberty cap was hung up in taverns and coffeehouses, which were the clubhouses of that day.  Every French victory was made the occasion of a “civic feast,” while the anniversaries of the fall of the Bastile and of the founding of the Republic were kept in every great city.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Read McMaster’s History of the People of the United States, Vol.  II., pp. 89-96; Harpers Magazine, April, 1897.]

%229.  England seizes our Ships; the Rule of 1756%.—­To preserve neutrality in the face of such a public sentiment was hard enough; but Great Britain made it more difficult yet.  When war was declared, France opened the ports of her West Indian Islands and invited neutral nations to trade with them.  This she did because she knew that the British navy could drive her merchantmen from the sea, and that all trade between herself and her colonies must be carried on in the ships of neutral nations.

Now the merchants of the United States had never been allowed to trade with the French Indies to an unlimited extent.  The moment, therefore, they were allowed to do so, they gladly began to trade, and during the summer of 1793 hundreds of ships went to the islands.  There were at that time four questions of dispute between us and Great Britain: 

1.  Great Britain held that she might seize any kind of food going to a French port in our ships.  We held that only military stores might be so seized.

2.  Great Britain held that when a port had been declared to be blockaded, a ship bound to that port might be seized even on the high seas.  We held that no port was blockaded unless there was a fleet actually stationed at it to prevent ships from entering or leaving it.

3.  Great Britain held that our ships might be captured if they had French goods on board.  We held that “free ships made free goods,” and that our ships were not subject to capture, no matter whose goods they had on board.

4.  Great Britain in 1756 had adopted a rule that no neutral should have in time of war a trade she did not have in time of peace.

The United States was now enjoying a trade in time of war she did not have in time of peace, and Great Britain began to enforce her rule.  British ships were ordered to stop American vessels going to or coming from the French West Indies, and if they contained provisions, to seize them.  This was done, and in the autumn of 1793 great numbers of American ships were captured.