225 



BLOCKADE, LAW OF. 



BLOCKADE, LAW OF. 



226 



blockaded by sea only, a neutral may cirry on commerce with it by 

 inland communications. The neutral vessel may enter a neighbouring 

 port not included in the blockade with goods destined to be carried 

 thence over land into the blockaded place. 



When a place has once been notified to be blockaded, a counter 

 notice should always be given by the blockading power when the 

 blockade has ceased. The observance of this formality is obviously 

 conducive to the general convenience, but there are of course no means 

 of punishing a belligerent for its neglect. 



In this country a blockade is ordered and declared by the sovereign 

 in council. It is held, however, that a commander of a queen's ship on 

 a station so distant as to preclude the government at home from inter- 

 fering with the expedition necessary to meet the change of circum- 

 stances, may have authority delegated to him to extend or vary 

 the blockade on the line of coast on which he is stationed. But the 

 courts will not recognise a blockade altered in this manner within the 

 limits of Europe. It appears to be necessary for the sake of the 

 public convenience that the power of declaring a blockade should, as 

 far as possible, be exercised only by the sovereign power in a state ; but 

 it would perhaps be going too far to insist that it should in no circum- 

 stances be delegated to a subordinate authority. This would seem to 

 be something very like interfering with the internal arrangements of 

 states. 



Some very important questions connected with the law of blockade 

 were brought into discussion in the course of the French war by the 

 Berlin decree of Bonaparte and the orders in council of the king of 

 Great Britain. 



The Berlin decree, which was issued on the 21st of Nov., 1806, 



declared the whole of the British islands in a state of blockade, and all 



-, of whatever country, trading to them, liable to be captured by 



thc ships of France. It also shut out all British vessels and produce 



both from France and from all the other countries then subject to the 



authority of the French emperor. By a subsequent decree, issued 



t'ter in aid of this, all neutral vessels were required to carry what 



died letters or certificates of origin, that is, attestations from the 



French consuls of the ports from which they had set out, that no part 



of their cargo was British. This was the revival of an expedient which 



had been first resorted to by the Directory in 1796. 



There can be no question as to the invalidity of this blockade, 

 ling to the recognised principles of the law of nations: the 

 ial circumstance of a good blockade, namely, the presence of a 

 force sufficient to maintain it, was here entirely wanting. 



The first step in resistance to the Berlin decree was taken by Great 

 Britain on the 7th of January, 1807, while the Whig ministry of which 

 Mr. Fox had been the head was still in office, by an order in council 

 subjecting to seizure all neutral vessels trading from one hostile port 

 in Europe to another with property belonging to an enemy. This 

 order however is said to have been extensively evaded ; while, at the 

 time, new efforts began to be made by the French emperor to 

 ftiforce the Berlin decree. It is admitted that in the course of the 

 months of September and October, 1S07. several neutral vessels were 

 i I'd for violation of that decree ; that a considerable alarm was 

 pxcited among the mercantile classes in this country by these acts of 

 violence ; that the premium of insurance rose ; and that some suspen- 

 sion of trade took place. (See ' Edin. Rev.' vol. xiv. p. 442, &c.) It was 

 i/ontended by the supporters of the British orders in council, that the 



(feet of the Berlin decree upon the commerce of this country during 

 the months of August, September, and October in particular, was most 



ly t'. It. I See Mr. Stephen's ' Speech.') 



In these circumstances the British government, at the head of which 

 Mr. Perceval now was, issued further orders in council, dated the 

 1 1th and 21t of November, 1807. These new orders declared France 

 .nid all its tributary states to be in a state of blockade, and all vessels 

 subject to seizure which were either found to have certificates of origin 

 ..n board, or which should attempt to trade with any of the parts of 

 the world thus blockaded. All neutral vessels, intended for France or 

 any other hostile country, were ordered in all cases to touch first at 

 Home British port, and to pay custom dues there, after which they 

 were, in certain cases, to be allowed to depart to their destination. In 

 all cases, in like manner, vessels clearing out from a hostile port were, 

 l"-f"re proceeding farther on their voyage, to touch at a British port. 



The predicament in which neutral countries were placed by this war 



if edicts was sufficiently embarrassing. The effect of the British 



. * in council is thus distinctly stated by a writer in the ' Edinburgh 



-.v,' vol. xii. p. 229 : " Taken in combination with the Berlin 



-., they interdict the whole foreign trade of all neutral nations ; 



tlipy prohibit everything which that decree had allowed; and they 



i-njoin those very things which are there made a ground of confis- 



mtion." 



By a subsequent decree, issued by Bonaparte from Milr.u on the 

 27th of December, 1807, the British dominions in all quarters of the 

 world were declared to be in a state of blockade, and all countries were 

 prohibited from trading with each other in any articles produced or 

 manufactured in the parts of the earth thus put under a ban. Various 

 additional orders in council were also promulgated from time to time 

 in explanation or slight modification of those last mentioned. 



It is asserted by the opponents of this policy of the British govern- 

 mi nt, that the result w. ti"ii in the course of the following 



ARTS AND sci. in\. vol.. n. 



year of the foreign trade of this country to the extent of fourteen 

 millions sterling. It is even contended that, but for some counter- 

 acting causes which happened to operate at the same time, the falling 

 off would have been nearly twice as great. (See ' Edin. Rev.' vol. xiv. 

 p. 442, &c.) 



The principal branch of trade affected was that with America, which 

 was at this time the only great neutral power in existence ; and which 

 in that capacity had, previous to the Berlin decree, been an annual 

 purchaser of British manufactures to a large amount, partly for home 

 consumption, but to a much larger extent for the supply of the con- 

 tinent. Both the Americans, therefore, and the various parties in this 

 country interested in this export trade, exclaimed loudly against the 

 edicts of the t\vo belligerent powers. It appears that the American 

 government, on application to that of France, obtained an assurance, 

 which was deemed satisfactory, though not in an official form, that the 

 Berlin decree would not be put in force against American vessels ; but 

 when this was urged as a sufficient reason for the revocation of the 

 English orders in council, the English government refused to pay any 

 attention to it, maintaining that America should insist upon a public 

 renunciation of the obnoxious French decree. 



The subject was brought before parliament in March, 1808, by 

 motions made in both houses asserting the illegality of the orders in 

 council. On the 1st of April the merchants of London, Liverpool, and 

 other towns, who had petitioned for the repeal of the orders, on the 

 ground of their injurious operation upon the commercial interests of 

 the country, were heard at the bar by their counsel, Mr. Brougham, 

 whose speech, as has been already mentioned, was afterwards published. 

 The result was, that ministers consented to the institution of an in- 

 quiry into the effect of the orders, in the course of which many wit- 

 were brought forward both by the petitioners and by the 

 ministers in support of their respective views. But no immediate 

 result followed, either from this inquiry, or from a motion made in 

 the House of Commons on the 6th of March, 1809, by Mr. Whitbread, 

 declaratory of the expediency of acquiescing in the propositions made 

 by the government of the United States. 



On the 26th of April however a new order in council was issued, 

 which, it was contended by the opponents of the policy hitherto pur- 

 sued, did in fact amount to an abandonment of the whole principle of 

 that policy. On the pretext that the state of circumstances, so far as 

 the Continent was concerned, had undergone a complete change by 

 the insurrection of the Spaniards, the blockade, which had formerly 

 extended to all the countries under the authority of France, was now 

 confined to France itself, to Holland, to part of Germany, and to the 

 north of Italy; and the order which condemned vessels for having 

 certificates of origin on board was rescinded. On the other hand, the 

 interdict against trading with the blockaded ports was apparently made 

 more strict and severe by the revocation of the liberty formerly given, 

 in certain cases, to neutral vessels to sail for an enemy's port after 

 having first touched at one in Great Britain. Upon this point however 

 some important modifications were made by subsequent orders. A 

 system was introduced of licensing certain vessels to proceed to hostile 

 ports after having first touched and paid custom-dues at a British port ; 

 and this was eventually carried so far, that at last the number of such 

 licences granted is said to have exceeded 16,000. 



The position however in which America was still placed was such as 

 almost to force her to go to war either with England or France. In 

 this state of things, in the spring of 1812 a vigorous effort was again 

 ina<li' by the opposition in parliament to obtain the entire removal of 

 the orders in council. In the Lords, a motion was made by the 

 Marquis of Lansdowne on the 28th of February, for a select committee 

 of inquiry into the effect of the orders, but was negatived by a majority 

 of 135 to 71. On the 3rd of March a similar motion made in this 

 Commons by Mr. Brougham was also rejected by a majority of 216 to 

 144. On the 3rd of April however an order of the prince regent in 

 council appeared in the ' Gazette,' revoking entirely the former orders 

 in so far as regarded America, but only on the condition that the 

 government of the United States should also revoke an order by which 

 it had some time previously excluded British armed vessels from its 

 ports, while it admitted those of France. This conditional revocation 

 being still considered unsatisfactory, Lord Stanley, on the 28th of 

 April, moved in the Commons for a committee of inquiry into the 

 subject generally, and the discussion ended by ministers giving their 

 assent to the motion. Many witnesses were in consequence examined, 

 both by this committee and by another of the Lords, which sat at the 

 same time, having been obtained on the 5th of May on the motion of 

 Earl Fitzwilliam. When the examinations had been brought to a 

 close;, Mr. Brougham, on the 16th of June, moved in the Commons, 

 that the crown should be addressed to recall or suspend the orders 

 unconditionally. At the termination of this discussion ministers inti- 

 mated that they were prepared to concede the question ; and accord- 

 ingly, on the 23rd of the same month, an unconditional suspension 

 of the orders, in so far as America was concerned, appeared in the 

 ' Gazette.' By this time however the government of the United States 

 had declared war, on the ground, as is well known, not only of the 

 orders in council, but of other alleged acts of injustice on the part of 

 the British government. 



The policy of the British government in issuing the orders in council 

 of November, 1807, was maintained by its opponents to be wrong, on 



