MARITIME INTERNATIONAL LAW. 29I 



Neutrality of Russia, Sweden, Denmark, and other Maritime States, 

 which threatened her Naval Supremacy, and when their ports were 

 closed to her Commercial Marine, Admiral Nelson, in command of 

 the British fleet, bombarded Copenhagen and destroyed the Naval 

 Squadrons who defended the Armed Neutrality ; and subsequently, he 

 attacked the allied Naval Squadrons of France and Spain, and won 

 the signal victory at Trafalgar. 



Thus, both France, and Great Britain, throughout that great 

 struggle violated, openly and determinedly, every principle of 

 International Law, and every accepted rule of Maritime Warfare, 

 for the one purpose of inflicting on the commerce and navigation of 

 one another the greatest amount of suffering and ruin, in the hope 

 thereby, of crippling the food supplies, and the commerce of the 

 people of the belligerent nations. 



This deplorable state of affairs is referred to by Sir Robert 

 Phillimore, as follows : — 



" During the Six years' war between Great Britain and Napoleon I. the history 

 of blockade had its greatest epoch. Napoleon established what was then known 

 as the Contiaental system, the object of which was to exclude Great Britain and 

 its Colonies from the trade of the Continent of Europe. The continental system 

 was created by the Decrees of Berhn, in 1806, by which the British Islands were 

 declared to be in a state of blockade, until Great Britain should recognise the 

 French Maritime Law. This decree was met by the British Orders in Council 

 of January 7th, 1807, by which all ships were forbidden to enter any French port, 

 or any place under French occupation or influence, under pain of confiscation. 

 Napoleon retaliated by the Decree of Warsaw, January 2Sth, 1807, which declared 

 the confiscation of all British commodities in the Hanseatic Cities, then newly 

 occupied by the French troops. The British having established a strict blockade 

 of the Elbe and Weser, declared, by two Orders in Council, March nth, 1807, 

 and November nth, 1807, all those ports from which the British flag was 

 excluded to be in a state of blockade, and, that all ships proceeding thither should 

 be captured, unless they touched at a British port and paid duty to the British 

 Government. Napoleon • replied to this by the Decree of Milan (1807), which 

 declared every ship submitting to the British conditions to be denationalized and 

 a lawful prize, and, further, that every vessel, to whatever nation she might 

 belong, fitted out from, or going to, England, or the British Colonies, or any 

 country occupied by British troops, should be captured and confiscated. 



" By these blockade skirmishes, the neutral commerce and navigation, pressed 

 and threatened on all sides, were entirely suppressed, and did not revive until 

 Great Britain, remitting that part of the Order in Council, by which the countries 

 of the Allies of France were included under the Proclamation of blockade, 

 Napoleon, on his side, revoked the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, in 1812 

 whereupon the British Orders in Council were all instantly declared 

 cancelled." 



