Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/136

126 America, which Napoleon meant to take in hand. December 17, from the royal palace at Milan, in retaliation for the Orders in Council, and without waiting to consult President Jefferson, Napoleon issued a new proclamation, compared with which the Berlin Decree of the year before was a model of legality.


 * Considering," began the preamble, "that by these acts the English government has denationalized the ships of all the nations of Europe; that it is in the power of no government to compound its own independence and its rights,—all the sovereigns in Europe being jointly interested in the sovereignty and independence of their flag; that if by an inexcusable weakness, which would be an ineffaceable stain in the eyes of posterity, we should allow such a tyranny to pass into a principle and to become consecrated by usage, the English would take advantage of it to establish it as a right, as they have profited by the tolerance of governments to establish the infamous principle that the flag does not cover the goods, and to give to their right of blockade an arbitrary extension, contrary to the sovereignty of all States,"—

Considering all these matters, so important to States like Denmark, Portugal, and Spain, whose flags had ceased to exist, and of whose honor and interests this mighty conqueror made himself champion, Napoleon decreed that every ship which should have been searched by an English vessel, or should have paid any duty to the British government, or should come