Terrible sufferings came upon the West Indies for lack of the supplies they had been accustomed to import, and between 1780 and 1787 as many as 15,000 slaves perished from starvation.
Another cause held the American merchant marine in check for several years succeeding the declaration of peace.

If there be one interest which must have behind it a well-organized, coherent national government, able to protect it and to enforce its rights in foreign lands, it is the shipping interest.

But American ships, after the Treaty of Paris, hailed from thirteen independent but puny States.

They had behind them the shadow of a confederacy, but no substance.

The flags they carried were not only not respected in foreign countries--they were not known.