At the outbreak of the French wars, Nov. 6, 1793, the British government issued instructions directing all British armed vessels to seize every neutral ship they should meet, loaded with the produce of a French colony or carrying supplies for its use.[227] These orders were kept secret for several weeks, until the whole American commerce with the Antilles, and all American ships found on the ocean, laden in whole or in part with articles of French colonial produce or for French colonial use, were surprised and swept into British harbors, where they were condemned by British admiralty courts, on the ground known as the “Rule of the War of 1756,”--that because trade between the French colonies and the United States was illegal in peace, it was illegal in war. From the point of view in which European Powers regarded their colonies, much could be said in support of this rule. A colony was almost as much the property of its home government as a dockyard or a military station. France and Spain could hardly complain if England chose to treat the commerce of such governmentstations as contraband; but a rule which might perhaps be applied by European governments to each other worked with great injustice when applied to the United States, who had no colonies, and made no attempt to build up a navy or support an army by such means. Taken in its broadest sense, the European colonial system might be defined by the description which the best of British commentators gave to that of England,[228]--a “policy pursued for rendering the foreign trade of the whole world subservient to the increase of her shipping and navigation.” American Independence was a protest against this practice; and the first great task of the United States was to overthrow and destroy the principle, in order to substitute freedom of trade. America naturally objected to becoming a martyr to the rules of a system which she was trying to revolutionize.