The financial crisis triggered partly by British restrictions on U.S. trade during the French Revolutionary Wars was the Panic of 1796–1797.
The panic began in Britain and the United States after speculative lending and land investment weakened amid falling property prices. British policies connected to the wars with revolutionary France disrupted American commerce and contributed to pressure on merchants and banks.
In the United States, the crisis affected land speculation, especially in areas where investors had borrowed heavily. Defaults spread through financial networks, causing bank failures and commercial distress. The event is often described as one of the earliest major financial crises in the young United States.
It is sometimes confused with the Panic of 1819, which was the first major peacetime financial crisis in the United States. The 1796–1797 panic occurred much earlier and was closely connected to international war finance and Atlantic trade.