The treaty negotiated by John Jay in 1794 was received with an outburst of popular indignation.Jay was damned as a traitor, while the sailors of Portsmouth burned him in effigy.By way of an answer to the terms of the obnoxious treaty, a seafaring mob in Boston raided and burned the British privateer Speedwell, which had put into that port as a merchantman with her guns and munitions hidden beneath a cargo of West India produce.
The most that can be said of the commercial provisions of the treaty is that they opened direct trade with the East Indies but at the price of complete freedom of trade for British shipping in American ports.It must be said, too, that although the treaty failed to clear away the gravest cause of hostility--the right of search and impressment--yet it served to postpone the actual dash, and during the years in which it was in force American shipping splendidly prospered, freed of most irksome handicaps.
The quarrel with France had been brewing at the same time and for similar reasons.Neutral trade with England was under the ban, and the Yankee shipmaster was in danger of losing his vessel if he sailed to or from a port under the British flag.It was out of the frying-pan into the fire, and French privateers welcomed the excuse to go marauding in the Atlantic and the Caribbean.What it meant to fight off these greedy cutthroats is told in a newspaper account of the engagement of Captain Richard Wheatland, who was homeward bound to Salem in the ship Perseverance in 1799.He was in the Old Straits of Bahama when a fast schooner came up astern, showing Spanish colors and carrying a tremendous press of canvas.
Unable to run away from her, Captain Wheatland reported to his owners:
"We took in steering sails, wore ship, hauled up our courses, piped all hands to quarters and prepared for action.The schooner immediately took in sail, hoisted an English Union flag and passed under our lee at a considerable distance.We wore ship, she did the same, and we passed each other within half a musket.
A fellow hailed us in broken English and ordered the boat hoisted out and the captain to come aboard, which he refused.He again ordered our boat out and enforced his orders with a menace that in case of refusal he would sink us, using at the same time the vilest and most infamous language it is possible to conceive of.
...We hauled the ship to wind and as he passed poured a whole broadside into him with great success.Sailing faster than we, he ranged considerably ahead, tacked and again passed, giving us a broadside and furious discharge of musketry, which he kept up incessantly until the latter part of the engagement.His musket balls reached us in every direction but his large shot either fell short or went considerably over us while our guns loaded with round shot and square bars of iron were plied so briskly and directed with such good judgment that before he got out of range we had cut his mainsail and foretopsail all to rags and cleared his decks so effectively that when he bore away from us there were scarcely ten men to be seen.He then struck his English flag and hoisted the flag of The Terrible Republic and made off with all the sail he could carry, much disappointed, no doubt, at not being able to give us a fraternal embrace.We feel confidence that we have rid the world of some infamous pests of society."By this time, the United States was engaged in active hostilities with France, although war had not been declared.The news of the indignities which American commissions had suffered at the hands of the French Directory had stirred the people to war pitch.
Strong measures for national defense were taken, which stopped little short of war.The country rallied to the slogan, "Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," and the merchants of the seaports hastened to subscribe funds to build frigates to be loaned to the Government.Salem launched the famous Essex, ready for sea six months after the keel was laid, at a cost of $75,000.
Her two foremost merchants, Elias Hasket Derby and William Gray, led the list with ten thousand dollars each.The call sent out by the master builder, Enos Briggs, rings with thrilling effect:
"To Sons of Freedom! All true lovers of Liberty of your Country!
Step forth and give your assistance in building the frigate to oppose French insolence and piracy.Let every man in possession of a white oak tree be ambitious to be foremost in hurrying down the timber to Salem where the noble structure is to be fabricated to maintain your rights upon the seas and make the name of America respected among the nations of the world.Your largest and longest trees are wanted, and the arms of them for knees and rising timber.Four trees are wanted for the keel which altogether will measure 146 feet in length, and hew sixteen inches square."This handsome frigate privately built by patriots of the republic illuminates the coastwise spirit and conditions of her time.She was a Salem ship from keel to truck.Captain Jonathan Haraden, the finest privateersman of the Revolution, made the rigging for the mainmast at his ropewalk in Brown Street.Joseph Vincent fitted out the foremast and Thomas Briggs the mizzenmast in their lofts at the foot of the Common.When the huge hemp cables were ready for the frigate, the workmen carried them to the shipyard on their shoulders, the parade led by fife and drum.Her sails were cut from duck woven in Daniel Rust's factory in Broad Street and her iron work was forged by Salem shipsmiths.It was not surprising that Captain Richard Derby was chosen to command the Essex, but he was abroad in a ship of his own and she sailed under Captain Edward Preble of the Navy.
The war cloud passed and the merchant argosies overflowed the wharves and havens of New England, which had ceased to monopolize the business on blue water.New York had become a seaport with long ranks of high-steeved bowsprits soaring above pleasant Battery Park and a forest of spars extending up the East River.
