Introductory 31 



agents, in the gains that flowed in, soon found a 

 compensation for all the perjury and fraud necessary 

 to cheat the former out of her belligerent rights. 

 The high commercial importance of the United 

 States, thus obtained, coupled with a similarity of 

 language and, to a superficial observer, a resem 

 blance in person between the natives of America 

 and Great Britain, has caused the former to be the 

 chief, if not the only, sufferers by the exercise of the 

 right of search. Chiefly indebted for their growth 

 and prosperity to emigration from Europe, the 

 United States hold out every allurement to foreign 

 ers, particularly to British seamen, whom, by a 

 process peculiarly their own, they can naturalize as 

 quickly as a dollar can exchange masters and a blank 

 form, ready signed and sworn to, can be filled up. 5 

 It is the knowledge of this fact that makes British 

 naval officers when searching for deserters from 

 their service so harsh in their scrutiny, and so scep 

 tical of American oaths and asseverations." 



The last sentence of the foregoing from James is 

 a euphemistic way of saying that whenever a Brit 

 ish commander short of men came across an Ameri 

 can vessel he impressed all of her crew that he 

 wanted, whether they were citizens of the United 

 States or not. It must be remembered, however, 

 that the only reason why Great Britain did us more 

 injury than any other power was because she was 

 better able to do so. None of her acts were more 

 offensive than Napoleon's Milan decree, by which 



* This is an exaggeration. 



