Not having succeeded in his struggle for 'Sailors' Rights,' Jefferson now took up the cudgels for 'Free Trade'; but still without a resort to arms. His chosen means of warfare was an Embargo Act, forbidding the departure of vessels from United States ports. This, although nominally aimed against France as well, was designed to make Great Britain submit by cutting off both her and her colonies from all intercourse with the United States. But its actual effect was to hurt Americans, and even Jefferson's own party, far more than it hurt the British. The Yankee skipper already had two blockades against 'Free Trade.' The Embargo Act added a third. Of course it was evaded; and a good deal of shipping went from the United States and passed into Canadian ports under the Union Jack. Jefferson and his followers, however, persisted in taking their own way. So Canada gained from the embargo much of what the Americans were losing. Quebec and Halifax swarmed with contrabandists, who smuggled back return cargoes into the New England ports, which were Federalist in party allegiance, and only too ready to evade or defy the edicts of the Democratic administration. Jefferson had, it is true, the satisfaction of inflicting much temporary hardship on cotton-spinning Manchester. But the American cotton-growing South suffered even more. The American claims of 'Free Trade and Sailors' Rights' were opposed by the British counter-claims of the Orders-in-Council and the Right of Search. But 'Down with the British' and 'On to Canada' were without exact equivalents on the other side. The British at home were a good deal irritated by so much unfriendliness and hostility behind them while they were engaged with Napoleon in front. Yet they could hardly be described as anti-American; and they certainly had no wish to fight, still less to conquer, the United States. Canada did contain an anti-American element in the United Empire Loyalists, whom the American Revolution had driven from their homes. But her general wish was to be left in peace. Failing that, she was prepared for defence.