[267] M. Thiers’ ‘Consulat et l’Empire,’ vii. 222.
[268] This is Mr. Fox’s Order of April 8, 1806.
[269] This is Lord Grey’s Order. The Morning Chronicle of Jan. 4, 1808, in commenting on the above order, remarks that Lord Grey “distinctly stated to the United States of America that their acquiescence in a code which violated the rights of independent States would compel this country to take steps for its own protection.... The Decree is certainly directed against the Americans—it is a menace to her; ... she must choose her party.”
[270] By the Portland Administration, of which Canning and Perceval were members: two orders would seem to have been issued on the same day. Key to ‘Orders,’ p. 5.
[271] These Orders in Council are dispersed through a multitude of works. In 1808 they were laid before Parliament, and will be found in extenso in vol. x. ‘Parl. Papers’ of that year.
[272] Such was the effect in England of these proclamations, that in the months of September and October 1807, when these or similar orders were anticipated, no fewer than sixty-five applications were made to the Commissioners of Customs at the port of London for permission to re-land cargoes, already shipped in the Thames for exportation to the continent of Europe, the impression being that goods arriving there in English vessels would be confiscated (‘Parl. Papers,’ vol. x., 1808, p. 11).
[273] The Orders in Council were fully examined by Mr. Alex. Baring in his pamphlet. Mr. Baring’s sympathies were strongly American, but, on the whole, fair to this country (see ‘Enquiry into Causes and Consequences of the Orders in Council,’ Lond. 8, 1808).
[274] Alison, ch. xlii. (1806).
[275] Vide Martin’s ‘Law of Nations,’ Sup. 5, 437, 435, and ‘Annual Register,’ 1806, p. 677, for the Order in Council detaining Prussian ships. In discussing “the rights of war as to neutrals,” Wheaton remarks that “during the wars of the French Revolution the United States, being neutral, admitted that the immunity of their flag did not extend to cover enemy’s property, as a principle founded on the customary law and established usage of nations, though they sought every opportunity of substituting for it the opposite maxim of free ships, free goods, by conventional arrangements with such nations as were disposed to adopt that modification of the universal law” (vol. ii. pp. 176, 177).
[276] There is a further Decree of March 23, 1810, known as the ‘Rambouillet Decree’ on this subject (see ‘Key to Orders in Council,’ No. 13).