The Mary Ann, An Illicit Adventure

Abstract

IN THE SPRING of the year 1801 the United States ship Mary Ann sailed into the River Plate, having had some curious adventures already, but destined for even more curious ones.' By chance, her arrival coincided with the lull in the European conflict preceding the Peace of Amiens. But neither the Napoleonic wars nor their far-flung disruption of the established order were at an end. For imperial Spain, indeed, the events of the coming decade were to prove fatal. Already English sea power had so interfered with Spain's communications with her colonies that her disintegrating system of mercantilist barriers had nearly collapsed. Into the commercial vacuum thus created stepped Yankee merchants, cheerfully cashing in on the privileges of their position as neutrals. The trans-oceanic carrying trade, which not only Spain but France and Holland as well were forced to abandon by the circumstances of their conflict with England, fell largely into American hands. In an astonishingly short time, the United States climbed to a commercial rank second only to England. Her merchants soon appeared in many ports from which they had formerly been excluded, and indeed in some from which they were still officially excluded. About the legality of their presence in such places they did not trouble themselves overmuch. In Novemnber, 1797, a royal edict opened Spanish colonial ports to neutral vessels coming from neutral or Spanish ports and carrying goods not designated contraband.2 Despite the urgent necessity which dictated this measure, many Spanish merchants bitterly opposed it, still hoping to save their cherished privileges. Moreover, the neutrals soon proved incorrigible in their abuse of the new regu-