07)
that preluded active hostilities against us. It also led Napoleon to
confiscate all American ships in his harbours after April 17th, 1808.

The November Orders in Council soon drew a reply from Napoleon. He
heard of them during a progress through the north of Italy, and from
Milan he flung back his retort, the famous Milan Decrees of November
23rd and December 17th. He thereby declared every neutral ship, which
submitted to those orders, to be denationalized and good prize of war;
and the same doom was pronounced against every vessel sailing to or
from any port in the United Kingdom or its colonies or possessions.
But these measures were not to affect ships of those States that
compelled Great Britain to respect their flag. The islanders might
well be dismayed at the prospect of a seclusion which promised to
recall the Virgilian line:

"penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos."

Yet they resolved to pit the resources of the outer world against the
militarism of Napoleon; and, drawing the resources of the tropics to
the new power-looms of Lancashire and Yorkshire, they might well hope
to pour their unequalled goods into Europe from points of vantage such
as Sicily, Gibraltar, the Channel Islands, and Heligoland. There were
many Englishmen who believed that the November Orders in Council
brought nothing but harm to our cause. They argued that our
manufactured goods must find their way into the Continent in spite of
the Berlin Decrees; and they could point to the curious fact that
Bourrienne, Napoleon's agent at Hamburg, when charged to procure
50,000 overcoats for the French army during the Eylau campaign, was
obliged to buy them from England.[181]

The incident certainly proves the folly of the Continental System. And
if we had had to consult our manufacturing interests alone, a policy
of _laisser faire_ would doubtless have been the best. England,
however, prided herself on her merchant service: to that she looked as
the nursery for the royal navy: and the abandonment of the world's
carrying trade to neutrals would have seemed an act of high treason.
Her acts of retaliation against the Berlin Decrees and the policy of
Tilsit were harsh and high-handed. But they were adopted during a
pitiless commercial strife; and, in warfare of so novel and desperate
a kind, acts must unfortunately be judged by their efficacy to harm
the foe rather than by the standards of morality that hold good during
peace. Outwardly, it seem