BEFORE considering the aggressions of the British government upon our shipping during the period between the Revolution and the War of 1812, it seems still more necessary than it was in the case of the French to try to get the point of view of the aggressor. The men who governed England were placed in power not only to guard but to promote English interests against those of all other nations. Patriotism and natural ambition inspired them to do this as fully as possible. The welfare of the nation being in their charge, it was their duty to consider first of all entire safety from invasion, as everybody believed then, and believes now, that safety depended upon the supremacy of the nation upon the high seas. To maintain that supremacy every Briton felt obliged to make every needed sacrifice. Small wonder, then, that in maintaining that supremacy the rulers of England should have felt obliged to hamper all possible rivals for that supremacy. The state of public mind at the end of a century wherein England had been at war four years for every three of peace demanded that the British supremacy at sea be maintained at _any_ cost; and the morality of the world has not even yet reached a condition where an English patriot can feel sentiments differing greatly from those of the end of the eighteenth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, civilized nations acknowledge certain rules of national conduct called international law, but at the end of the eighteenth nothing of the kind had any real weight in regulating international affairs. Men quoted Vattel in their correspondence, but the one recognized rule contained three words only, "Might makes right." Practical, not altruistic, considerations controlled all negotiations, _and no nation had, or could expect to maintain, any "right" which it was unwilling to support by force_. It was the duty of neutral powers to build ships of the line, or meekly suffer the consequences. The facts of history support no statement more fully than this, that American shipping suffered from spoliations, between 1783 and 1812, solely because they begged, instead of fighting, for that freedom of the sea which they claimed as a natural right. As an introduction to the story of the British aggressions, here are a few extracts from letters written by one Phineas Bond, a native-born American who served England as consul at Philadelphia, beginning in 1787. The letters were written either to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, or to one of the under secretaries. (See _An. Rep. Am. Hist. Asso._, 1894.) On February 21, 1787, in referring to an act of Parliament relating to the registry of English ships, Bond said that "if properly pointed it must inevitably cramp the remnant of commerce now enjoyed by this country." He is confident that the "alarm and perplexity" which the act occasioned in America, prove that it will be beneficial to British shipping.