I io The Story of the New England Whalers 



quasi-war with France ended to a large extent the 

 depredations of the French pirates; but the Ameri- 

 can foreign policy was changed after the end of 

 that war. Under the new administration (Jef- 

 ferson's), the aggressions of European belligerents 

 were to be stopped by a policy of "peaceable 

 coercion." The American government thought 

 it possible to compel the British, during the war 

 with Napoleon, to grant "free trade" to American 

 ships by a threat to cease buying certain British 

 goods, such as beer, playing cards, etc., in case the 

 grant were not made. When an American war- 

 ship was attacked upon the high seas and a part 

 of her crew carried away by a British frigate, the 

 American administration avenged the outrage by 

 laying an embargo on all American shipping! 

 No other part of the history of the American people 

 is so exasperating to a modern patriot as that 

 relating to the period between 1801 and 1812. 



Naturally an embargo upon American shipping 

 was wholly ruinous to the whalers, and it was 

 during the embargo period that most of the whale- 

 men whose names appear in the list of captains 

 of foreign whale ships emigrated. Finding it 



