state cannot, without consent of that state, relinquish his allegiance and obligations to that state and adopt another nationality. The USA, however, held the doctrine of "Voluntary Expatriation", whereby a person could change his nationality entirely and permanently, relinquishing all obligation to his previous country. (From 1802 the qualifying period of residence in the USA was laid down as 5 years.) Thus, there were a great many seamen in American ships on whose nationality the two governments were never going to agree. - There were a very large number of genuine British seamen serving quite legally on American ships. (The Admiralty, in an estimate made 57 years later, long after the acrimony had died down, reckoned as many as 20,000.) This was partly because wages in the American merchant service were anything up to twice as high as on British merchant ships; partly because many British seamen wanted to avoid being pressed into the Royal Navy, which on British merchant ships they were much more likely to be; and partly because it was the obvious place for Royal Navy deserters to go. - Matters were complicated by the USA's refusal to issue official certificates of nationality to naturalised persons (then again, if they had, every American over 30 years old in 1812 would have needed one!). Thus, American-born sailors, or genuinely naturalised British-born ones, could not produce evidence of their status. Some carried sworn affidavits or certificates issued by American consuls, but these had no legal status and easily could