"When the first Congress under the new Federal Constitution assembled in 1789, a spirit of pride was manifested in the swift recovery and the encouraging growth of the merchant marine, together with a concerted determination to promote and protect it by means of national legislation.The most imperative need was a series of retaliatory measures to meet the burdensome navigation laws of England, to give American ships a fair field and no favors.The Atlantic trade was therefore stimulated by allowing a reduction of ten per cent of the customs duties on goods imported in vessels built and owned by American citizens.The East India trade, which already employed forty New England ships, was fostered in like manner.Teas brought direct under the American flag paid an average duty of twelve cents a pound while teas in foreign bottoms were taxed twenty-seven cents.It was sturdy protection, for on a cargo of one hundred thousand pounds of assorted teas from India or China, a British ship would pay $27,800 into the custom house and a Salem square-rigger only $10,980.
The result was that the valuable direct trade with the Far East was absolutely secured to the American flag.Not content with this, Congress decreed a system of tonnage duties which permitted the native owner to pay six cents per ton on his vessel while the foreigner laid down fifty cents as an entry fee for every ton his ship measured, or thirty cents if he owned an American-built vessel.In 1794, Congress became even more energetic in defense of its mariners and increased the tariff rates on merchandise in foreign vessels.A nation at last united, jealous of its rights, resentful of indignities long suffered, and intelligently alive to its shipping as the chief bulwark of prosperity, struck back with peaceful weapons and gained a victory of incalculable advantage.Its Congress, no longer feeble and divided, laid the foundations for American greatness upon the high seas which was to endure for more than a half century.Wars, embargoes, and confiscations might interrupt but they could not seriously harm it.
In the three years after 1789 the merchant shipping registered for the foreign trade increased from 123,893 tons to 411,438tons, presaging a growth without parallel in the history of the commercial world.Foreign ships were almost entirely driven out of American ports, and ninety-one per cent of imports and eighty-six per cent of exports were conveyed in vessels built and manned by Americans.Before Congress intervened, English merchantmen had controlled three-fourths of our commerce overseas.When Thomas Jefferson, as Secretary of State, fought down Southern opposition to a retaliatory shipping policy, he uttered a warning which his countrymen were to find still true and apt in the twentieth century: "If we have no seamen, our ships will be useless, consequently our ship timber, iron, and hemp; our shipbuilding will be at an end; ship carpenters will go over to other nations; our young men have no call to the sea; our products, carried in foreign bottoms, will be saddled with war-freight and insurance in time of war--and the history of the last hundred years shows that the nation which is our carrier has three years of war for every four years of peace."The steady growth of an American merchant marine was interrupted only once in the following decade.In the year 1793 war broke out between England and France.A decree of the National Convention of the French Republic granted neutral vessels the same rights as those which flew the tricolor.This privilege reopened a rushing trade with the West Indies, and hundreds of ships hastened from American ports to Martinique, Guadeloupe, and St.Lucia.
Like a thunderbolt came the tidings that England refused to look upon this trade with the French colonies as neutral and that her cruisers had been told to seize all vessels engaged in it and to search them for English-born seamen.This ruling was enforced with such barbarous severity that it seemed as if the War for Independence had been fought in vain.Without warning, unable to save themselves, great fleets of Yankee merchantmen were literally swept from the waters of the West Indies.At St.
Eustatius one hundred and thirty of them were condemned.The judges at Bermuda condemned eleven more.Crews and passengers were flung ashore without food or clothing, were abused, insulted, or perhaps impressed in British privateers.The ships were lost to their owners.There was no appeal and no redress.At Martinique an English fleet and army captured St.Pierre in February, 1794.Files of marines boarded every American ship in the harbor, tore down the colors, and flung two hundred and fifty seamen into the foul holds of a prison hulk.There they were kept, half-dead with thirst and hunger while their vessels, uncared for, had stranded or sunk at their moorings.Scores of outrages as abominable as this were on record in the office of the Secretary of State.Shipmasters were afraid to sail to the southward and, for lack of these markets for dried cod, the fishing schooners of Marblehead were idle.
For a time a second war with England seemed imminent.An alarmed Congress passed laws to create a navy and to fortify the most important American harbors.President Washington recommended an embargo of thirty days, which Congress promptly voted and then extended for thirty more.It was a popular measure and strictly enforced by the mariners themselves.The mates and captains of the brigs and snows in the Delaware River met and resolved not to go to sea for another ten days, swearing to lie idle sooner than feed the British robbers in the West Indies.It was in the midst of these demonstrations that Washington seized the one hope of peace and recommended a special mission to England.
