Smuggler Nation (63 page)

87
. Washington’s letter available in
The Writings of George Washington: 1780–1782
, ed. Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York: Putnam, 1891), 6:135.

88
. Quoted in Brandes,
Warhogs
, 44.

89
. Letter available in Gertrude E. Meredith,
The Descendants of Hugh Amory, 1605–1805
(London: privately printed at the Chiswick Press, 1901), 231.

90
. John Welsh, as quoted in East,
Business Enterprise in the American Revolutionary Era
, 52.

91
. The paragraph above is drawn from Brandes,
Warhogs
, 42–43.

92
. Tuchman,
The First Salute
, 196, 201.

93
. Pembroke Papers (1780–1794); Letters and Diaries of Henry, Tenth Earl of Pembroke and his Circle, ed. Lord Herbert (London: Cape, 1950), 179.

Chapter 4

1
. See Alexander Hamilton, “Federalist No. 12,”
The Federalist Papers: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
, ed. Ian Shapiro (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

2
. The newly appointed federal customs collector at Penobscot, Maine, wrote to Hamilton at the end of 1789: “Under the State government by far the greatest part of these vessels [i.e., coasting ships] found means to avoid the regulation then prescribed.… Coasters have so long trampled upon the Revenue Laws of this State with impunity that they now think they are bound by no Laws.” Quoted in Leonard D. White,
The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History
(New York: Macmillan, 1948), 461.

3
. George C. Herring,
From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 52.

4
. On the anemic nature of the early American state, see Sheldon D. Pollack,
War, Revenue, and State Building: Financing the Development of the American State
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009). Brian Balogh, in contrast, argues that the early American state was less weak and hollow than conventionally assumed but operated in a subtler and more “out of sight” manner. See Balogh,
A Government out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth-Century America
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

5
. Carl E. Prince and Mollie Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service: A Bicentennial History
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Treasury, 1989), 37.

6
. See Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 71.

7
. Quoted in “Federalist No. 35,”
The Federalist Papers
, 168.

8
.
The Papers of Alexander Hamilton
, ed. Harold C. Syrett (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), 8:398.

9
.
Gazette of the United States
, as quoted in White,
The Federalists
, 462.

10
.
Annals of Congress
, 1st Cong., 1st sess., 311.

11
. Joshua Smith, “Patterns of Northern New England Smuggling, 1783–1820,” in William S. Dudley and Michael J. Crawford, eds.,
The Early Republic and the Sea: Essays on the Naval and Maritime History of the Early United States
(Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2001), 37.

12
. Charles R. Ritcheson,
Aftermath of Revolution: British Policy Toward the United States, 1783–1795
(Dallas: Southern Methodist University, 1969), 212.

13
. See especially Joshua M. Smith,
Borderland Smuggling: Patriots, Loyalists, and Illicit Trade in the Northeast, 1783–1820
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida), 2006.

14
. Werner Levi, “The Earliest Relations Between the United States of America and Australia,”
Pacific Historical Review
12, no. 4 (December 1943): 354–55.

15
.
The Trader’s Book
, 1809, mss 9001-T, loose manuscripts, Rhode Island Historical Society, 54.

16
. Quoted in Charles C. Stelle, “American Trade in Opium to China Prior to 1820,”
Pacific Historical Review
9, no. 4 (December 1940): 427 (note 12).

17
. Quoted in Stelle, “American Trade in Opium to China Prior to 1820,” 427 (note 12).

18
. Jacques M. Downs, “American Merchants and the China Opium Trade, 1800–1840,”
Business History Review
42, no. 4 (Winter 1968): 419.

19
. Downs, “American Merchants and the China Opium Trade, 1800–1840,” 425.

20
. On the economic importance of this export boom, see Claudia D. Goldin and Frank D. Lewis, “The Role of Exports in American Economic Growth During the Napoleonic Wars, 1793–1807,”
Explorations in Economic History
17 (January 1980): 6–25.

21
. Quoted in Gautham Rao,
The Creation of the American State: Customhouses, Law, and Commerce in the Age of Revolution
(University of Chicago, PhD dissertation, Department of History, December 2008), 180.

22
. Melvin H. Jackson,
Privateers in Charleston: A French Palatinate in South Carolina
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1969), 108.

23
. Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 182–83.

24
. Quoted in Gordon S. Wood,
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 202.

25
. Douglas C. North,
The Economic Growth of the United States 1790–1860
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1961), 25.

26
. Herring,
From Colony to Superpower
, 115.

27
. Wood,
Empire of Liberty
, 623.

28
. Wood,
Empire of Liberty
, 641.

29
. Quoted in Donald R. Hickey,
The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 11.

30
. Wood,
Empire of Liberty
, 642.

31
. Wood,
Empire of Liberty
, 646.

32
. John Odiorne to James Locke, as quoted in Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 146.

33
. This section draws heavily from Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 187–216; and Donald R. Hickey, “America’s Response to the Slave Revolt in Haiti, 1791–1806,”
Journal of the Early Republic
2, no. 4 (Winter 1982): 361–79.

34
. Hickey, “America’s Response to the Slave Revolt in Haiti,” 362–363.

35
. Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 188–89; Hickey, “America’s Response to the Slave Revolt in Haiti,” 365.

36
. Hickey, “America’s Response to the Slave Revolt in Haiti,” 367.

37
. Quoted in Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 190.

38
. Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 193. See also Rayford W. Logan,
The Diplomatic Relations of the United States with Haiti, 1776–1891
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1941), 139.

39
. Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 194–95.

40
. Quoted in Hickey, “America’s Response to the Slave Revolt in Haiti,” 370.

41
.
Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution
, ed. Brett F. Woods (New York: Algora, 2009), 179.

42
. Quoted in Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 201–2.

43
. Quoted in Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 205.

44
. Quoted in Hickey, “America’s Response to the Slave Revolt in Haiti,” 374.

45
. Quoted in Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 212–13.

46
. Hickey, “America’s Response to the Slave Revolt in Haiti,” 378.

47
. Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 222.

48
. Quoted in Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 298.

49
. Quoted in Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 73.

50
. Quoted in Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 302.

51
. MacDonald comments that “almost no shipper felt bound by conscience or patriotism to obey the embargo if he could successfully violate it, for the law deprived him of his property and livelihood in the interest of a policy that he regarded as questionable on grounds of constitutionality, morality, and plain good sense.” See Forrest MacDonald,
The Presidency of Thomas Jefferson
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1976), 149.

52
.
Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution
, 222.

53
.
The Works of Thomas Jefferson
, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York: Putnam, 1905), 11:41.

54
. Burton Spivak,
Jefferson’s English Crisis: Commerce, Embargo, and the Republican Revolution
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1979), 162. Leonard Dupee White notes that one ship cleared from Boston to Charleston even blamed bad weather for having to veer off course and ending up in Lisbon: “On 14 January 1809, the schooner
Charles
cleared Boston for Charleston in ballast, but turned up in Lisbon. The master alleged that stress of weather had forced him ‘bear away’ for that distant port.” See White,
The Jeffersonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1801–1829
(New York: Macmillan, 1951), 445.

55
. Rao,
Creation of the American State
, 309–11.

56
. H. N. Muller, “Smuggling into Canada: How the Champlain Valley Defied Jefferson’s Embargo,”
Vermont History
38, no. 1 (Winter 1970): 5–21.

57
. Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 75.

58
. Quoted in Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 75.

59
. Quoted in Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 75. See also Richard F. Casey, “North Country Nemesis: The Potash Rebellion and the Embargo of 1807–09,”
New York Historical Society Quarterly
64 (1980): 31–49.

60
. Flour was in such high demand in British Nova Scotia and New Brunswick during this period that many farmers in Eastern Maine switched to cultivating wheat, producing a sudden spike in wheat production despite the less-than-ideal conditions. See Jamie H. Eves, “‘The Poor People Had Suddenly Become Rich’: A Boom in Maine Wheat, 1793–1815,”
Maine Historical Society Quarterly
27, no. 3 (Winter 1987): 114–41.

61
. Smith,
Borderland Smuggling
, 10–11.

62
. Smith,
Borderland Smuggling
, 60.

63
. Smith, “Patterns of Northern New England Smuggling,” 40–42.

64
. Smith,
Borderland Smuggling
, 52.

65
. Louis Martin Sears,
Jefferson and the Embargo
(New York: Octagon, 1966), 80.

66
. Robin Higham, “The Port of Boston and the Embargo of 1807–1809,”
American Neptune
16 (July 1956): 189–210.

67
.
The Writings of Albert Gallatin
, ed. Henry Adams (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1879), 1:448.

68
. Christopher Ward, “The Commerce of East Florida During the Embargo, 1806–1812: The Role of Amelia Island,”
Florida Historical Quarterly
68, no. 2 (October 1989): 160–79.

69
. Prince and Keller,
The U.S. Customs Service
, 78.

70
. Peter S. Palmer,
History of Lake Champlain: From Its First Exploration by the French in 1609 to the Close of the Year 1814
, 4th ed. (Harrison, NY: Harbor Hill, ed. 1983), 158–59. On embargo resistance turned violent, see also Joshua Smith, “Murder on Isle au Haut: Violence and Jefferson’s Embargo in Coastal Maine, 1808–1809”
Maine History
39, no. 1 (Spring 200): 17–40.

71
. In the case of Massachusetts, for example, see Douglas Lamar Jones, “The Caprice of Juries: The Enforcement of the Jeffersonian Embargo in Massachusetts,”
American Journal of Legal History
24, no. 4 (October 1980): 307–30.