Note 2 — Chapter I · A REVIEW OF THE CAUSES LEADING TO THE SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND.

In 1804, the frigate Cambria boarded an American merchantman in the harbor of New York, and in direct opposition to the port officers, carried off several of her seamen. To complete the insult, the commander declared, in an official letter to the British Minister, that he "considered his ship, while lying in the harbor of New York, as having dominion around her within the distance of her buoys." Not long after a coasting vessel while going from one American port to another, was hailed by a British cruiser, and, refusing to stop, was fired into and one of her crew killed. Thus an American citizen was murdered within a mile of shore, and while going from port to port of his own country.[2]