France had loaned us money for the Revolutionary War. In 1793 we found it inexpedient to keep paying (Louis was dead, and we were having trouble with the Brits), and the French Directorate got a bit upset with us and let loose privateers to seize ships. With customary brilliance Congress had sold off the last warships.
The Brits had us over a barrel--they had a bigger navy and were at war with France (and seizing some of our ships trading with France too) -- and the resulting Jay treaty left us nominally sort-of anti-French (not popularly, though).
We wound up losing about 2000 merchant ships by the time things wound down.
No declaration of war (the Supreme Court said that was OK) -- that set a bit of precedent. It made sense not to go all out; all we wanted to do was shoot up their corsairs until they quit bothering us. And get reimbursed for our loses, which didn't happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment