another fact, that we had warred for the right, not because it
_was_ the right, but because it agreed with our self-interest to do
so. We were contending for "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights": meaning
by the former expression, freedom to trade wherever we chose without
hindrance save from the power with whom we were trading; and by the
latter, that a man who happened to be on the sea should have the
same protection accorded to a man who remained on land. Nominally,
neither of these questions was settled by, or even alluded to, in
the treaty of peace; but the immense increase of reputation that
the navy acquired during the war practically decided both points
in our favor. Our sailors had gained too great a name for any one
to molest them with impunity again.

Holding views on these maritime subjects so radically different
from each other, the two nations could not but be continually dealing
with causes of quarrel. Not only did British cruisers molest our
merchant-men, but at length one of them, the 50-gun ship _Leopard_,
attacked an American frigate, the _Chesapeake_, when the latter was
so lumbered up that she could not return a shot, killed or disabled
some twenty of her men and took away four others, one Briton and
three Americans, who were claimed as deserters. For this act an
apology was offered, but it failed to restore harmony between
the two nations. Soon afterward another action was fought. The
American frigate _President_, Commodore Rodgers, attacked the
British sloop _Little Belt_, Captain Bingham, and exchanged one
or two broadsides with her,--the frigate escaping scot-free
while the sloop was nearly knocked to pieces. Mutual recriminations
followed, each side insisting that the other was the assailant.

When Great Britain issued her Orders in Council forbidding our