was impossible to enforce
such an order as this, even with the immense force at her disposal; but
it was ostensibly to meet this "paper blockade" that Napoleon issued
from Berlin, on the twenty-first of November 1806, a decree
which--without a single ship to carry it out--placed the British Islands
in a state of blockade. All commerce or communication with them was
prohibited; all English goods or manufactures found in the territory of
France or its allies were declared liable to confiscation; and their
harbours were closed, not only against vessels coming from Britain, but
against all who had touched at her ports. An army of inspectors spread
along the coasts to carry out this decree.

[Sidenote: Its results.]

But it was almost impossible to enforce such a system. It was foiled by
the rise of a widespread contraband trade, by the reluctance of Holland
to aid in its own ruin, by the connivance of officials along the
Prussian and Russian shores, and by the pressure of facts. It was
impossible even for Napoleon himself to do without the goods he
pretended to exclude; an immense system of licences soon neutralized his
decree; and the French army which marched to Eylau was clad in
greatcoats made at Leeds, and shod with shoes made at Northampton.
Vexatious therefore as the system might be at once to England and to
Europe, it told on British industry mainly by heightening the price of
its products, and so far by restricting the market for them. But it told
far more fatally on British commerce. Trade at once began to move from
English vessels, which were subject to instant confiscation, and to
shelter itself under neutral flags, where goods had at least to be
proved to be British before they could be seized. America profited most
by this transfer. She was now entering on that commercial career which
was to make her England's chief trading rival; and she rapidly availed
herself of the Berlin decree to widen her carrying trade. But the
British Government at once felt the pressure of the merchant class. As
yet this class had profited above all others by the war and by the
monopoly which war placed in its hands; and now that not only its
monopoly but its very existence was threatened, it called on the
Government to protect it. It was to this appeal that the administration
of Lord Grenville replied, in January 1807, by an Order in Council which
declared all the ports of the coast of France and her allies under
blockade, and any