rk every device of England for lengthening her
lease of life. Noticing that we had annulled our blockade of the Elbe
and Weser, with the aim of getting our goods introduced there by
neutral ships, Napoleon charged his Finance Minister, Gaudin, to
prepare a decree for pressing hard on neutrals who had touched at any
of our ports or carried wares that could be proved to be of British
origin.[178]

He was perfectly correct in his surmise that English goods were about
to be sent into the Continent extensively on neutral vessels. After
the consequences of the Treaty of Tilsit had been fully developed,
that was almost their only means of entry. "In August, September and
October, British commerce lay prostrate and motionless until a
protecting and self-defensive system was interposed by our Orders in
Council."[179] The first of these ordered reprisals against the new
Napoleonic States (November 4th): a week later came a second which
declared that, as the Orders of January had not induced the enemy to
relax his commercial hostilities, but these were now enforced with
increased rigour, any port whence the British flag was excluded would
be treated as if it were actually blockaded; that is, the principle of
the legality of a nominal blockade, abandoned in 1801, was now
reaffirmed. The carriage of hostile colonial products was likewise
prohibited to neutrals, though certain exceptions were allowed. Also
any neutral vessel carrying "certificates of origin"--a device for
distinguishing between British and neutral goods--was to be considered
a lawful prize of war. A third Order in Council of the same date
allowed goods to be imported into the United Kingdom from a hostile
port in neutral ships, subject to the ordinary duties, and bonding
facilities were granted for the re-exportation of such goods to any
friendly or neutral port.[180] These orders were designed to draw
neutral commerce through our ports, and to give secret facilities for
the carriage of our goods by neutrals, while pressing upon those that
obeyed Napoleon's system.

The harshest of them was that which encouraged the searching of
neutral vessels for certificates of origin--a measure as severe as the
confiscation of British property by Napoleon, which it was designed to
defeat. And we may note here that the friction resulting from our
Orders in Council and our enforcement of the right of search led to
the United States passing a Non-Intercourse Act (December 23rd, 18