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Jefferson hoped to avoid war and get Britain and France to Respect American Sovereignty and Neutrality in the Napoleonic Wars?His core determination: ?To have submitted our rightful commerce to prohibitions and tributary exactions from others, would have been to surrender our independence.???For years we have been looking as Spectators on our brethren of Europe, afflicted by all those evils which necessarily follow an abandonment of the moral rules which bind men and nations together. Connected with them in friendship and commerce, we have happily so far kept aloof from their calamitous conflicts, by a steady observance of justice towards all, by much forbearance, and multiplied sacrifices. At length however, all regard to the rights of others having been thrown aside, the belligerent Powers have beset the highway of commercial intercourse with Edicts which, taken together expose our commerce and Mariners, under almost every destination, a prey to their fleets and Armies. Each party indeed would admit our commerce with themselves, with the view of associating us in their war against the other. But we have wished war with neither.?Britain and France had been at war since 1803, after a brief hiatus from their previous conflict. Americans tried hard to remain neutral in this present conflict and keep up communications and trade with both countries. Unfortunately, it wasn't working. In 1806, France passed a law that prohibited trade between Britain and neutral parties, like the U.S., and French warships soon began seizing American merchant ships. In 1807, Britain retaliated, prohibiting trade between neutral parties and France. The British also began seizing American ships and demanding that all American vessels had to check in at British ports before they could trade with any other nation. America was getting the worst end of the deal on all sides.Along with their attempts to control trade, the British also tried to satisfy their need for sailors at America's expense. Britain claimed the right to board American ships and take into custody men who were thought to be deserters from the Royal Navy. Most of the time, however, the British had no proof that the men they grabbed were really British deserters, and the U.S. government saw their actions as clear cases of impressment, the seizure of innocent men for forced service in a foreign navy. Shockingly, some ten thousand men were captured from American ships in this era.The issues between Britain and the U.S. reached a climax on June 22, 1807, with the Chesapeake-Leopard affair. The American ship Chesapeake had just left Norfolk, Virginia, when it was stopped by the British warship Leopard. The Leopard's commander, Salusbury Pryce Humphreys, demanded that the British be allowed to search the Chesapeake for three deserters rumored to be on board. The Chesapeake's commander, James Barron, refused. Humphreys was unwilling to take no for an answer, and the Leopard fired on the Chesapeake, killing three and injuring 18. Barron, unable to return more than one shot, was forced to surrender. The British boarded the Chesapeake and seized four men, only one of whom was actually British.Americans were furious, leading President Thomas Jefferson to remark, ?Never since the Battle of Lexington have I seen this country in such a state of exasperation as at present.? America's neutrality and basic rights as an independent nation were clearly being violated, and something needed to be done about it. Jefferson didn't want war, but he was willing to take economic measures. He hoped that an embargo would hit the British and French where it would hurt them the most, in the pocketbook.And so in December 1807 Congress passed and Jefferson signed the Embargo Act. It prevented all U.S. ships and vessels from obtaining clearance to undertake voyages to foreign ports or places. That meant that no needed Americans goods or supplies could reach the belligerents, and also represented an escalation of attempts t.
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