339 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1813. 



name of the Continental Sys- 

 tem. 



For these attempts to ruin the 

 commerce of Great Britain, by 

 means subversive of the clearest 

 rights of neutral nations, France 

 endeavoured in vain to rest her jus- 

 tification upon the previous conduct 

 of his majesty's government. 



Under circumstances of unpa- 

 ralleled provocation, his majesty 

 had abstained from any measure 

 which the ordinary rules of the 

 law of nations did not fully war- 

 rant. Never was the maritime 

 superiority of Belligerent over 

 his enemy more complete and de- 

 cided. Never was the opposite 

 Belligerent so formidablydangerous 

 in his power, and in his policy, to 

 the hberties of all other nations. 

 France had already trampled so 

 openly and systematically on the 

 most sacred rights of neutral pow- 

 ers, as might well have justified 

 the placing her out of the pale of 

 civilized nations. Yet in this ex- 

 treme case, Great Britain had so 

 used her naval ascendency, that 

 her enemy could find no just cause 

 of complaint: and in order to give 

 to these lawless decrees the appear- 

 ance of retaliation, the ruler of 

 France was obliged to advance 

 principles of maritime law unsanc- 

 tioned by any other authority than 

 his own arbitrary will. 



The pretext for these decrees 

 were, first, that Great Britain had 

 exercised the rights of war against 

 private persons, their ships, and 

 goods ; as if the only object of le- 

 gitimate hostility on the ocean were 

 the public property of a state, or as 

 if the edicts and the courts of 

 France itself had not at all times 

 enforced this right with peculiar 



rigour ; secondly, that the British 

 orders of blockade, instead of be- 

 ing confined to fortified towns, 

 had, as France asserted, been un- 

 lawfully extended to commercial 

 towns and ports, and to the mouths 

 of rivers ; and thirdly, that they 

 had been applied to places, and to 

 coasts, which neither were, nor 

 could be actually blockaded. The 

 last of these charges is not founded 

 on fact ; whilst the others, even by 

 the admission of the American go- 

 vernment, are utterly groundless in 

 point of law. 



Against these decrees, his ma- 

 jesty protested and appealed ; he 

 called upon the United States to 

 assert their own rights, and to vin- 

 dicate their independence, thus 

 menaced and attacked ; and as 

 France had declared, thatshe would 

 confiscateevery vessel which should 

 touch in Great Britain, or be vi- 

 sited by British ships of war, his 

 majesty having previously is- 

 sued the order of January, 1807, 

 as an act of mitigated retaliation, 

 was at length compelled, by the 

 persevering violence of the enemy, 

 and the continued acquiescence of 

 neutral powers, to revisit, upon 

 France, in a more effectual man- 

 ner, the measure of her own injus- 

 tice ; by declaring, in an order in 

 council, bearing date the llth of 

 November, 1807, that no neutral 

 vessel should proceed to France, or 

 to any of the countries from which, 

 in obedience to the dictates of 

 France, British commerce was ex- 

 cluded, without first touching at a 

 port in Great Britain, or her de- 

 pendencies. At the same time his 

 majesty intimated his readiness to 

 repeal the orders in council, 

 whenever France should rescind 



