4 CONTEST AGAINST [1808. 



ports of all vessels that had touched at any port of 

 Great Britain. 



If England had been content to remain quiet, and 

 had left France and the neutral states to fight it out, 

 it is extremely probable that our trade would in the 

 long-run have gained rather than lost at least, as 

 long as we could furnish goods to meet the demand ; 

 which demand would have been met either by help of 

 smuggling or by other contrivances. 



Unfortunately, our rulers, taking a different view, 

 determined to fight Napoleon with his own weapons, 

 and to adopt measures of retaliation. 



A more unsound a more fatal policy never was 

 conceived. The AYlrigs were in office at the date of 

 the Berlin Decree ; and that Government, instead of 

 waiting to see how the neutral powers, especially 

 America, would act instead of giving time for delibe- 

 ration, or even submitting the question to the opinion 

 of Parliament took a course little likely to injure 

 France, but fraught with certain and absolute destruc- 

 tion to ourselves. 



The Whig Order was issued at the beginning of 

 January 1807 ; it declared that England was author- 

 ised by the Berlin Decree to blockade the whole sea- 

 board of France ; to prohibit all vessels which had 

 touched at any French port from entering our ports; 

 and that if we pleased to exercise the power, we should 

 be justified in seizing the cargoes. Such a wanton 

 outrage against the rights of neutrals never before was 

 perpetrated. No doubt France had by the Berlin 

 Decree grossly violated neutral rights, but that was no 

 justification of the course taken by England. 



Before the close of 1807 the "Whigs were succeeded 



