In time France, moved partly by pique because of our refusal to aid her, and partly by contempt for a nation that failed to protect its ships against British aggression, began itself to prey upon our commerce.

Then the state of our maritime trade was a dismal one.

Our ships were the prey of both France and England; but since we were neutral, the right of fitting out privateers of our own was denied our shipping interests.

We were ground between the upper and nether millstones.
But, as so often happens, persecution bred the spirit and created the weapons for its correction.

When it was found that every American vessel was the possible spoil of any French or English cruiser or privateer that she might encounter; that our Government was impotent to protect its seamen; that neither our neutrality rights nor the neutrality of ports in which our vessels lay commanded the respect of the two great belligerents, the Yankee shipping merchants set about meeting the situation as best they might.