| This was
especially distressing as life
in the Royal Navy was well known to be hellishly cruel. To those nations who were
subjected to this form of official kidnapping could not help but see this as an affront to
their national honor. The United States wrestled with this
issue from the mid 1790’s. During the administrations of Presidents Jefferson
and Madison
the problem became increasingly troublesome. A series of economic embargoes to make
England change her policies towards neutral shipping. These measures were uniformly
unsuccessful, even though the Duke of Wellington went
on record protesting the actions of his Government since it resulted in the cut off of the
supplies coming from the United States to his army in the Spanish Peninsula.
During all this
diplomatic maneuvering the US Military was was not completely idle. The French Squadrons in the
Caribbean and along the North American coast had clashed with US ships during the Quasi-War. The US Navy
had also won respect and honed its fighting edge in the Barbary Wars.
The history of the young US Navy is as
interesting as it is adventurous with ships like the USS Constellation and the USS Constitution.
However that is a
story for another web page. |
