L. 1807. 19. the Berlin decree. of blockade, and prohibited all commerce, even in neutral ships, in the produce or manufactures of this country-it went so far as even to exclude the possibility of one neuThe terms of tral nation trading in safety with another. But it is said that this threatened blockade was not, in point of fact, carried into effect; and that, in some other less exceptionable mode, its consequences might have been avoided. But it is immaterial whether it was executed at sea or not; unquestionably it received execution, and the most rigorous execution, at land. Foreign ships were only enabled to come to this country with their foreign produce-they were not permitted, under the pain of confiscation, to take away our goods in return-and can it be said that this is not a real execution? 20. possessed of ing force. "The French government justify, in the preamble of The French their decree, their proceedings, on the ground of the no blockad previous proclamation of the late administration in April 1806, which declared the coasts of the Channel in a state of blockade. But that is a mistake in point of fact; for in no one single instance did they declare either a harbour, or a coast containing several harbours, in a state of blockade, without having previously invested it. The coasts of the Channel, it is well known, when this blockade was declared, were so closely invested, that not a praam could venture to leave the range of their own batteries without incurring the most imminent risk of capture. The French government, on the other hand, in their decree, declared this country in a state of blockade, can require no illustration. It never could have been supposed that his Majesty would submit to such an injury, waiting in patient acquiescence till France might think proper to attend to the slow and feeble remonstrances of neutral states, instead of resorting immediately to steps which might check the violence of the enemy, and retort upon him the evils of his own injustice. Other powers would have had no right to complain, if, in consequence of this unparalleled aggression, the King had proceeded immediately to declare all the countries occupied by the enemy in a state of blockade, and to prohibit all trade in the produce of these countries; for, as the French decree itself expresses it, the law of nature justifies the employment against our enemies of the same arms which L. 1807. not only without making any attempt to invest it, but CHAP. without being able to send out a single vessel to endanger the neutral vessels who might attempt to violate the blockade. Therein lay the difference, the vital difference, between the proceedings of the two countries: the British government declared coasts and rivers blockaded when their maritime force was so great, and so stationed, that the enemy themselves evinced their sense of the reality of the investment by never venturing to leave their harbours; the French declared an imaginary blockade on the seas, and acted upon it in their condemnations on land, when they not only had not a single vessel at sea to maintain it, and when their enemies were insulting them daily in their very harbours. Such a proceeding was as absurd as if England, without having a soldier on the Continent, were to declare Bergen-op-Zoom or Lille in a state of blockade, and act upon this order by seizing all goods belonging to citizens of those towns, wherever she could find them in neutral bottoms on the high seas. 21. cence of the the Berlin decree. "But it is said the neutral nations did not acquiesce in these decrees, and therefore we were not justified in Acquiesretaliating in such a way as would affect their interests. neutrals in Where, then, did they resist? What followed the Berlin decree? Did the three nations whom the decree materially affected—Denmark, Portugal, and America—either remonstrate or take up arms to compel its repeal? Not one of them did so. The Danish government, indeed, complained in strong terms of the British order of 7th he himself makes use of. If third parties suffer from these measures, their demands for redress must be directed against that country which first violates the established usages of war, and the rights of neutral states. Neutrality, properly considered, does not consist in taking advantage for the neutral's profit of every situation between the belligerents, whereby emolument may be made, but in observing a strict and honest impartiality, so as not to afford advantage in the war to either, and particularly in so far restraining its trade to what it had ordinarily been in time of peace, as to prevent one belligerent escaping the effect of the other's hostilities."-LORD HOWICK's Letter to MR RIST, 17th March 1807; Parl. Deb. x. 403, 407. L. 1807. CHAP. January 1807, but were completely silent on the previous and far stronger Berlin decree of 21st November 1806, to obviate which alone it was issued. This temper savoured pretty strongly of the principle of the armed neutrality, which it has ever been the anxious wish of the Danish government to establish as the general law of the seas. Portugal was not to be blamed, because she had no force at her command to make any resistance; and accordingly the port of Lisbon was notoriously the entrepôt for violating our orders of 7th January, and restoring to the enemy, under neutral colours, all the advantages of a coasting trade. But America was completely independent of France; and has she done anything to proclaim her repugnance to the French decree? When the corresponding decree of the French Directory was issued in 1798, it was noticed in the President's speech as highly injurious to the interests of the United States, and such as could not be allowed to exist without subverting the independence of their country. What has America now done in relation to the Berlin decree? Nothing; and that, too, although Napoleon himself announced his resolution to make no distinction between the United States and other neutrals in this particular, and acted upon this resolution in the Spanish decree issued on the 17th February, which contained no exception whatever in favour of the Transatlantic States. Having acquiesced in the violation of the law of nations in favour of one belligerent, America is bound, if she would preserve her neutral character, tơ show a similar forbearance in regard to the other. 22. "But it is said these orders are injurious to ourselves, Napoleon's even more than to our enemies, and that they exclude policy in his decrees. us from a lucrative commerce we otherwise might have carried on in neutral bottoms, either by connivance or licenses with our enemies. Let it be recollected, however, that, when these orders were issued, we were excluded from every harbour of Europe except Sweden and Sicily; and these sufficed for what trade we could L. 1807. hare carried on with the Continental states, or what CHAP. we can have lost by our retaliatory orders. It is in vain to pretend that these decrees were never meant to be acted upon by Buonaparte, and that, but for our Orders in Council, they would have sunk into oblivion. Such a dereliction of a great object of settled policy is entirely at variance with the known character of the French Emperor, and his profound hostility to this country, the ruling principle of his life. It is contradicted by every newspaper, which, before the orders were issued, were full of the account of the seizure of English goods in every quarter of Europe; and by his unvarying state policy, which in every pacification, and especially at Tilsit, made the rigorous exclusion of British goods the first step x. 666, 673. towards an accommodation."1 1 Parl, Deb. Upon a division, both Houses supported ministers; 2 Parl, Deb. the Upper by a majority of 127 to 61; the Lower by x. 684, 976. 214 to 94.2 23. on this de the justice of In endeavouring, at the distance of five-and-thirty years, to form an impartial opinion on this most impor- Reflections tant subject, it must at once strike the most cursory bate, and on observer, that the grounds on which this question was the Orders debated in the British parliament were not those on in Council. which its merits really rested, or on which they were placed by Napoleon at the time, and have been since argued by the Continental historians. On both sides in England it was assumed that France was the first aggressor by the Berlin decree, and that the only question was, whether the Orders in Council exceeded the just measure of retaliation, or were calculated to produce more benefit or injury to this country? Considered in this view, it seems impossible to deny that they were at least justifiable in point of legal principle, whatever they may have been with reference to political expedience. The able argument of Lord Howick to the Danish minister is unanswerable as to this point. If an enemy § 18, note. adopts a new and unheard-of mode of warfare, which 3 Ante, c. 1, CHAP. affects alike its opponent and neutral states, and they L. submit without resistance to this novel species of hosti1807. lity, either from a feeling of terror or a desire of profit, 24. they necessarily come under obligation to be equally passive in regard to the measures of retaliation which the party so assailed may think it necessary to adopt. If they act otherwise, they lose the character of neutrality, and become the disguised, but often the most effective and the most valuable, allies of the innovating belligerent. But was the Berlin decree the origin of the commercial Which party warfare? or was it merely, as Napoleon and the French aggressor? writers assert, a retaliation upon England, by the only was the means at the disposal of the French Emperor, for the new and illegal species of warfare which, in the pride of irresistible maritime strength, its government had thought fit to adopt? That is the point upon which the whole question-so far as the legality of the measures in question is concerned-really depends; and yet, though put prominently forward by Napoleon, it was scarcely touched on by either party in the British parliament. Nor is it difficult to see to what cause this extraordinary circumstance was owing. Both the great parties which divide that assembly were desirous of avoiding that question. The Whigs did so because the measure complained of by Napoleon, and on which the Berlin decree was justified by the French government, had been mainly adopted by Mr Fox, and subsequently extended by Lord Howick ; the Tories, because they were unwilling to cast any doubt on the exercise of maritime powers, in their opinion of essential importance to this country, and which gave them the great advantage of having their political adversaries necessarily compelled to support the general principle on which the measures in question had been founded. History, however, must disregard all these temporary considerations, and in good faith approach the question, |