[383] On March 28, 1808, an Act of Parliament was passed, fixing the duties on exportations from Great Britain in furtherance of the provisions of the Orders. This Act contained a clause excepting American ships, ordered into British ports, from the tonnage duties laid on those which entered voluntarily.
[384] In a debate on the Orders, March 3, 1812, the words of Spencer Perceval, one among the ministers chiefly responsible for them, are thus reported: "With respect to the principle upon which the Orders in Council were founded, he begged to state that he had always considered them as strictly retaliatory; and as far as he could understand the matter they were most completely justified upon the principle of retaliation.... The object of the government was to protect and force the trade of this country, which had been assailed in such an unprecedented manner by the French decrees. If the Orders in Council had not been issued, France would have had free colonial trade by means of neutrals, and we should have been shut out from the Continent.... The object of the Orders in Council was, not to destroy the trade of the Continent, but to force the Continent to trade with us." (Cobbett's Parl. Debates, vol. xxi. p. 1152.)
As regards the retaliatory effect upon France, Perceval stated that the revenue from customs in France fell from sixty million francs, in 1807, to eighteen and a half million in 1808, and eleven and a half in 1809. (Ibid. p. 1157.)
[385] Correspondance de Napoléon, vol. xvii. p. 19.
[386] Mr. Henry Adams (History of the United States, 1801-1817) gives 134 as the number of American ships seized between April, 1809, and April, 1810, and estimates the value of the vessels and cargoes at $10,000,000 (Vol. v. p. 242.) The author takes this opportunity of acknowledging his great indebtedness to Mr. Adams's able and exhaustive work, in threading the diplomatic intricacies of this time.
[387] December 26, 1805.
[388] Metternich's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 82.
[389] Metternich to Stadion, Jan. 11, 1809; Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 312.
[390] Letter of Napoleon to Louis, dated Trianon, Dec. 20, 1808; Mémoires de Bourrienne, vol. viii. p. 134. Garnier's Louis Bonaparte, p. 351. The date should be 1809. On Dec. 20, 1808, Napoleon was at Madrid, in 1809 at Trianon; not to speak of the allusion to the Austrian war of 1809.
[391] Napoleon issued orders to this effect in August, 1807. Cargoes of goods such as England might furnish were sequestrated; those that could not possibly be of British origin, as naval stores and French wines, were admitted. All vessels were to be prevented from leaving the Weser. No notification of this action was given to foreign agents. See Cobbett's Political Register, 1807, pp. 857-859.