All the ships seized from 1800 to
1812 did not average one hundred and fifty yearly, of which more than
one-third were released, and indemnity finally paid for half the
residue: namely, there were 917 seized by England, more than half
released; 558 seized by France, one-fourth released; 70 seized by
Denmark; 47 seized by Naples, and more property was detained by France
than England. But the sympathies of our Cabinet were with Napoleon; a
moment had arrived when he had determined to reverse the laws of trade
and exclude the exports of England from the Continent; and our rulers,
regardless of our own commerce, determined to withhold all our produce,
to cut off the raw material from England at the moment she had lost
the sale of her exports, and by this combined process to bring her to
submission. They forgot, for the moment, how impossible it is to reverse
the great laws of trade; that we thus gratuitously resigned to her the
commerce of the globe; that China, the Indies, with their inexhaustible
supplies, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Russia, and Africa, were open to her
ships and might fill the vacuum.
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