Foreign Issues
Although the war was over, the British had not completely abandoned the United States. Tensions with the British continued to plague the country even after the treaty had been signed. British troops refused to leave the forts in Detroit, Otsego, and New York because the government refused to return land confiscated from Tories during the war. Furthermore, American sailors, no longer under British protection, were being captured and sold into slavery by North African pirates. In 1785, pirates from Algiers captured an entire crew from an American merchant ship off the coast of Portugal. Spain also complicated things after the Revolution due to disputes such as the West Florida Controversy and Western issues based around the Mississippi River.
Read more about this topic: America's Critical Period
Famous quotes containing the words foreign and/or issues:
“For most visitors to Manhattan, both foreign and domestic, New York is the Shrine of the Good Time. “I don’t see how you stand it,” they often say to the native New Yorker who has been sitting up past his bedtime for a week in an attempt to tire his guest out. “It’s all right for a week or so, but give me the little old home town when it comes to living.” And, under his breath, the New Yorker endorses the transfer and wonders himself how he stands it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“How to attain sufficient clarity of thought to meet the terrifying issues now facing us, before it is too late, is ... important. Of one thing I feel reasonably sure: we can’t stop to discuss whether the table has or hasn’t legs when the house is burning down over our heads. Nor do the classics per se seem to furnish the kind of education which fits people to cope with a fast-changing civilization.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)