David CL Francis wrote:

We were understandably trying to stop any ships from supplying France
but we went too far after capturing American ships in forcing their
crews to fight for us on our ships!

Actually, it was simpler than that. British captains were responsible for obtaining
crews for their ships. If they stopped American ships and kidnapped Americans for
their crews, it would take at least 9 months for the complaint to reach England, it
would almost certainly be ignored by the Admiralty, and they might well be dead by
then. The attitude of the British government on the matter was not the least
important to those captains. So the kidnappings continued.

George Patterson
None of us is as dumb as all of us.