embargo actn.U.S. a statute, e.g. that of 1807–8, 1812, and 1813, forbidding the clearing of foreign merchant vessels from any port except by the special permission of the President.
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1883 Encycl. Brit. XV. 301/2 Everything prospered until the Embargo Act of 1808, cutting off commerce and the coast trade, struck Maine in a vital point.