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The third common effort of the mercantile citizenry was self-defense. The greatest irony of the Navy's early sparseness was the multitude of extant vessels whose owners begged the government to arm them to protect the nation's ports and cargo. When considering the resources available to the nation for the defense of commerce, historians often forget the potential for arming the merchant vessels themselves, which were otherwise completely defenseless against a privateer's cannons. Existing laws prohibited the docking or departure of any armed civilian vessel from American ports, which had the dual effect of protecting the harbors for enemy powers and denying protection to domestic ships on the high seas. As early as October 1797, President Adams considered waiving this restriction on American merchant vessels, but Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, whose customs collectors enforced the law, was cool to the idea. On 19 March 1798, Adams withdrew by executive order the requirements for local customs officials to restrain armed American merchant vessels from leaving port.[35] Congress finally responded on 25 June, the same day it passed the subscription ship bill, by approving legislation that allowed private vessels to sail armed out of American ports. Furthermore, the act empowered merchant crews to "oppose and defend against any search, restraint or seizure…by the commander or crew of any vessel under French colors." It placed only one condition: owners must post bonds to the government, which would be repaid only if the ship did not use its arms against neutral vessels.[36] (The restriction ensured that these vessels were not privateers, free to hunt and capture French cargo ships. The U.S. government authorized 365 privateers in the Quasi-War, about one-half of which were registered in Southern states, and one-third from New England. However, none of these saw any action in the West Indies.)[37]
