A dispute between the United States of America and the French Republic from 1798 to 1800 led to a series of attacks on American shipping. The United Kingdom's blockade of France, and the loss of several of his ships at sea, led William Seton into bankruptcy, and the Setons lost their home at 61 Stone Street in lower Manhattan. The following summer, Elizabeth and the children stayed with her father, who was still the health officer for the Port of New York on Staten Island. From 1801 to 1803, they lived in a house at 8 State Street, on the site of the present Church of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary (built in 1964). Through most of their married life, William Seton suffered from tuberculosis. The stress worsened his illness; his doctors sent him to Italy for the warmer climate, with Elizabeth and their eldest daughter as his companions. Upon landing at the port of Leghorn, they were held in quarantine for a month, for authorities feared they might have brought yellow fever from New York. William died on December 27, 1803, and was buried in Italy's Old English Cemetery. Elizabeth and Anna Maria were received by the families of her late husband's Italian business partners, Filippo and Antonio Filicchi, who introduced her to Catholicism.