the British and French decrees.  American ships bound for Great Britain were liable to be captured by French privateers which, in spite of the disasters of the Nile and Trafalgar, ranged the seas.  American ships destined for the Continent, if they failed to stop at British ports and pay tribute, were in great danger of capture by the sleepless British navy and its swarm of auxiliaries.  American sea captains who, in fear of British vengeance, heeded the Orders in Council and paid the tax were almost certain to fall a prey to French vengeance, for the French were vigorous in executing the Milan Decree.

=Jefferson’s Policy.=—­The President’s dilemma was distressing.  Both the belligerents in Europe were guilty of depredations on American commerce.  War on both of them was out of the question.  War on France was impossible because she had no territory on this side of the water which could be reached by American troops and her naval forces had been shattered at the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar.  War on Great Britain, a power which Jefferson’s followers feared and distrusted, was possible but not inviting.  Jefferson shrank from it.  A man of peace, he disliked war’s brazen clamor; a man of kindly spirit, he was startled at the death and destruction which it brought in its train.  So for the eight years Jefferson steered an even course, suggesting measure after measure with a view to avoiding bloodshed.  He sent, it is true, Commodore Preble in 1803 to punish Mediterranean pirates preying upon American commerce; but a great war he evaded with passionate earnestness, trying in its place every other expedient to protect American rights.

=The Embargo and Non-intercourse Acts.=—­In 1806, Congress passed and Jefferson approved a non-importation act closing American ports to certain products from British dominions—­a measure intended as a club over the British government’s head.  This law, failing in its purpose, Jefferson proposed and Congress adopted in December, 1807, the Embargo Act forbidding all vessels to leave American harbors for foreign ports.  France and England were to be brought to terms by cutting off their supplies.

The result of the embargo was pathetic.  England and France refused to give up search and seizure.  American ship owners who, lured by huge profits, had formerly been willing to take the risk were now restrained by law to their home ports.  Every section suffered.  The South and West found their markets for cotton, rice, tobacco, corn, and bacon curtailed.  Thus they learned by bitter experience the national significance of commerce.  Ship masters, ship builders, longshoremen, and sailors were thrown out of employment while the prices of foreign goods doubled.  Those who obeyed the law were ruined; violators of the law smuggled goods into Canada and Florida for shipment abroad.