In the West Indies the most audacious scenes of depredation were exhibited; so much so that the conduct of the public agents and of the commissioned cruisers surpassed all former examples. American vessels were not only captured under the French decrees, but when brought to trial in the French tribunals, they with their cargoes were condemned, without admitting the owners or their agents to make any defence. Indeed a system of spoliation seems to have been brought into practice for the obvious purpose of insuring condemnations. By a monstrous abuse in judicial proceedings, frauds and falsehoods, as well as flimsy and shameless pretexts, passed unexamined and uncontradicted, and were made the foundation of sentences of condemnation. American citizens were beaten, insulted, and imprisoned; and even their prisoners of war were exchanged with the British for Frenchmen. American property going to or coming from neutral ports was seized, and in many cases forcibly taken when destined for France, or actually in _French ports_, without any pretence whatever, except that the French required it for their own purposes. [Sidenote: Torture practised by French cruisers.] Nor did their wanton and outrageous conduct against the Americans stop here. Many accounts are extant of attempts to effect condemnations by bribing the officers and seamen of the American vessels to swear falsely; and it was further reserved for those days, when offered bribes were refused, and threats despised, to endeavour to accomplish the object by _torture_. In a protest set forth by Captain Martin, master of the _Cincinnatus_, a vessel of about two hundred and twenty-nine tons, belonging to Baltimore, the fact of torture having been resorted to by the French cruisers appears to be placed beyond all doubt.[315] In this protest he states that while on his voyage from Baltimore to London he was boarded by a French armed brig under English colours, when he with five of his crew were taken on board, and though the vessel’s papers when examined left no doubt of the nationality of his ship and cargo, being American, the officer in command of the French brig insisted that the cargo was English property, and assured Martin that if he would admit the fact, and formally acknowledge it, his full freight should be paid, and he should have a present of one thousand pounds. But the overture was spurned, the master declaring the whole to belong solely to Aquilla Brown of Baltimore, merchant. “Whereupon the French officers thumb-screwed the said master in the cabin of their said brig, and kept him in torture to extort a declaration that the said cargo was English property, for nearly four hours, but without the desired effect.” A vessel heaving in sight, Martin was liberated, but it was not until the _Cincinnatus_ reached the English Channel that she was relieved by H.M.S. _Galatea_, and finally reached Dover. Mr. Rufus King, minister of the United States