1812     CHASE OF THE BELVIDERA     79

fitted in the best manner for sailing ; and, having no convoying ship of war to show him the way, the American master becomes, of necessity, a practical navigator of the first order.

When England, at length, began her attempts to check this intercourse between her enemy and neutral America, neutral America grumbled, and, resorting to new subterfuges, went on. Other restrictions followed. Then came loud complaints, mixed with threats. Napoléon, next, began to feel the effects of England's restrictive system. Her proclamation, issued on the 16th of May, 1806, declaring the ports of France from the Elbe to Brest in a state of blockade, provoked the French emperor, on the 21st of the succeeding November, to fulminate from Berlin his sweeping decree ; declaring the British islands in a state of blockade ; ordering all British letters, subjects, and property to be seized ; prohibiting all trade in British produce and manufactures ; and pronouncing all neutral vessels, that had touched in England, or in any of her colonies, liable to confiscation.

This was, at once, an extinguisher upon all neutral nations ; it was tantamount to a declaration of war against neutral America ; but neutral America blamed, not her dear France, but England. There can be no doubt that, in retaliation for such a violation of all public law, England would have been justified in laying waste the French coast with fire and sword ; but she contented herself with issuing, on the 7th of January, 1807, an order in council, directing that no vessel should he permitted to trade from one port to another, in the possession of France or her allies. Finding that this order did not produce the expected effect, England, on the 11th of November in the same year, issued another ; in which, imitating France in her extravagant tone, she declared all the ports of her enemies, both in Europe and the colonies, in a state of blockade. This was followed by the Milan decree of December 17, 1807 ; by which every vessel that should have submitted to be searched by an English ship, or paid any tax to the English government, was declared to be denationalized, and to have become British property, and therefore lawful prize ; and every ship sailing from England or her colonies, or from any other country occupied by her troops, was also to be made lawful prize ; but, says the arch framer, " these measures shall cease to have any effect, with respect to all nations, who shall have the firmness to compel the English government to respect their flag."

The object of this proviso was too palpable to be misunderstood. Accordingly, after a few years of growling and snarling ; when, owing to the vigour of the British arms by sea and land, not a colony remained to France or her allies in either hemisphere ; when, the neutral trade being extinct, American ships were rotting at their moorings, and the untrodden wharfs of New York and Philadelphia becoming choked with grass and weeds, America boldly cast off her neutral disguise, and resolved, in the language of the noble race she had displaced, to " take

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