Thanks again.
My wife had observed that some form of ID seemed to become more common after around 1820. I speculated that, perhaps, it had something to do with President Andrew Jackson and a lingering desire to be able to differentiate between Indians and American citizens.
Completely forgot about the impressing of Americans into the British Navy and Merchant Marine.
Completely forgot about the impressing of Americans into the British Navy and Merchant Marine.
It was a big thing between 1790 and the War of 1812. I've read the dispatches between our Diplomats in France and the Jefferson and Madison administrations.
The United States was neutral during the Napoleonic Wars, and as a result, the British were constantly pretending to be American so that they could operate in French waters, and the French were getting very pissed about it. They were suggesting that perhaps we Americans were collaborating with the British, and perhaps we were not so neutral as we pretended to be?
Madison was Secretary of State at the time, and Monroe was Ambassador to France, and Madison instructed him to do everything he could to stop the forged papers being used, and that it was imperative that American Sailors be properly identifiable as such.
It was a very big deal at the time. Here is an excerpt from one of the letters that I read which I thought was interesting.
James Monroe in a letter from Paris, July 4, 1795.
The jealousy which is entertained by this government of the commerce carried on by our countrymen between the ports of this republic and those of England has latterly shewn itself in a more impleasant form than heretofore and I am fearful it will not yet produce some more disagreeable effect. A Mr Eldred was lately apprehended at Marseilles and sent here under guard upon a charge of having given intelligence to the British of some movement in the French fleet. Upon inquiry I found he had my passport granted too upon the most substantial documents proving him to be an American citizen; but I likewise found that in truth he was not an American citizen, for although born in America yet he was not there in the course of our revolution but in England, nor had he been there since. From what I hear of him, he is not a person of mischevious disposition nor one who would be apt to commit the offence charged upon him, but yet I do not see how I can officially interfere in his behalf, for when once a principle is departed from, it ceases to be a principle. More latterly I was requested by the commissary of foreign affairs to prohibit our consuls from granting passports, which was immediately done. I was afterwards requested by him to furnish a list of the Americans actually in Paris, and to render a like list every decade of those who should in the interim arrive, and which was promised and will be punctually executed. I herewith send you a copy of my instructions to the Consuls and correspondence with the commissary on this subject.