"Art. 1. The British islands are in a state of blockade.
"Art. 2. All commerce and correspondence with them is prohibited; consequently, all letters or packets written in England, or to an Englishman, written in the English language, shall not be dispatched from the post-offices, and shall be seized.
"Art. 3. Every individual, a subject of Great Britain, of whatever rank or condition, who is found in countries occupied by our troops or those of our allies, shall be made prisoner of war.
"Art. 4. Every warehouse, all merchandise or property whatsoever, belonging to an Englishman, are declared god-prize.
"Art. 6. No vessel coming directly from England or her colonies, or having been there since the publication of this Decree, shall be admitted into any port.
"Art. 7. Every vessel that by a false declaration contravenes the foregoing disposition, shall be seized, and the ship and cargo confiscated as English property.
"Art. 10. Our Ministers of Foreign Relations, etc., are charged with the execution of the present Decree."
[178] British Annual Register, 1807, Vol. XLII., Chap, xii., p. 227.
[179] Thompson's History of the War of 1812, between Great Britain and the United States, Chap. III., pp. 23, 24.
[180] The justice of the proceedings and demands of the British Government, the fairness of its proposals, and the injustice and unreasonableness of the conduct of the Madison U.S. Government, are forcibly presented in the following preamble to resolutions adopted by the Legislature of the State of Massachusetts, as late as the 5th of February, 1813: