Sovereignty and Neutrality in 1807

At the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars between France and a Britain-led coalition in 1803, the United States was still in its first decades of independence. The priority for the fledgling nation was to protect its newly gained sovereignty. This was no simple task; the new country remained militarily and economically weak compared to the European powers. At the time, the British navy comprised over five hundred warships. The United States, for comparison, had fewer than twenty. Unprepared and unwilling to be drawn into a European conflict, the United States sought to protect its interests by remaining neutral in the war in Europe. Simultaneously, the United States relied on trade with both France and the United Kingdom as a vital driver of economic growth. Previous conflicts between France and the United Kingdom had proven advantageous to the U.S. economy, as both countries depended on imports of U.S. raw materials to fuel their war efforts. American exports grew nearly tenfold between 1793 and 1806. By 1806, however, maintaining both neutrality and trade grew difficult. France and the United Kingdom imposed blockades to strangle each other’s economies and to deprive access to critical materials.

In theory, international maritime laws at the time protected a neutral country’s right to trade. This did not stop British ships from harassing American shipping and seizing U.S. cargo, however. Critically, the British navy also began forcing American sailors into British military service, a practice known as impressment. The British claimed impressed sailors were deserters from the Royal Navy. However, the British paid little attention in practice to whether impressed sailors were British or U.S. citizens. By 1807, more than six thousand U.S. citizens had been impressed into the Royal Navy.

British practices were met with outrage in the United States. With the capacity to conduct trade severely limited, the U.S. economy suffered. Moreover, Americans saw British practices as a violation of American sovereignty. Moreover, policies like impressment expressed blatant disregard for the United States’  hard-won independence. Despite growing outrage, the Thomas Jefferson administration remained wary of drawing the United States back into a war with a superior force. Even with the bulk of British forces occupied fighting France, such a war could be devastating. Conflict with Britain could ravage the U.S. economy, threaten the lives of thousands of U.S. citizens, and risk ending in reoccupation by the United States’ former colonial ruler. With the European war showing no sign of letting up and British aggression on the seas mounting, the United States feared even a small escalation or miscalculation could draw it into a position that would require action or become a flash point igniting war.