Indeed the fact cannot be questioned that the English government had invariably given directions to the officers of her navy not to press seamen, professing to be American born, who were found on board American vessels with certificates signed by the collector of customs of an American port, even though it was well known that these certificates were easily obtained in the United States, the American government making no effort to check their fraudulent emission. In the port of New York the system of obtaining false certificates had become so disgracefully open, that in one day, ludicrous as it may appear, an old woman was allowed by the collector to qualify a whole host of seamen by swearing she knew them to be American citizens; and when the clerk remonstrated against its impropriety, and appealed to the collector with regard to the credibility of the witness, he was told by his superior that it was no business of his, for that he only acted ministerially in the affair; so that this old woman continued during the entire day to receive her two dollars for every seaman who, through the oath administered to her, obtained his certificate.[300] The same system prevailed at Philadelphia; certificates were also frequently transferred from one individual to another, and became as much a matter of bargain and sale as any other description of chattel property; the most ridiculous part of the system being, that after a transfer of this description it was no unusual thing to see produced by a sailor of colour a certificate for his protection, in which he was described to be of “_a fair complexion, light hair and blue eyes_!” In all these indefensible proceedings the Americans held that a British subject, who by a false oath converted himself into an American citizen, or who naturalised himself in the United States, in conformity with their laws, ceased to owe allegiance to the king of his native country, and was entitled to their protection; and, in support of this strange doctrine, whenever this view was impeached, the American envoy merely replied that he had no instructions on that point. In the parliamentary discussions which took place upon the subject, Mr. A. Baring, with all his Whig tendencies and strong American predilections, while affecting to believe that the Russian campaign and Napoleon’s intrigues had nothing to do with the declaration of war by the Americans, strongly maintained the English right of impressment, adding “that if there were sixteen hundred American seamen in our navy, there were more than sixteen thousand British seamen in the American navy;”[301] and he condemned ministers for not carrying on the war against the United States with greater vigour: at that moment, however, every effort was concentrated to strike down Napoleon.