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 Prussian colours, so that before many weeks had elapsed four hundred of its merchant vessels were laid up in the harbours of Great Britain.

These stringent measures were the forerunners of Napoleon's famous decrees. The redoubtable Berlin decree issued at that city on the 10th of November, 1806, was meant, we must presume, to be only applicable to the countries actually occupied by his armies, including France, Holland, Spain, Italy, and the whole of Germany, although it declared the British Islands to be in a state of blockade.

This extraordinary document set forth that England did not admit the right of nations as universally acknowledged by all civilised peoples; that she declared as an enemy every individual belonging to an enemy's state, and in consequence made prisoners of war, not only of the crews of armed but also of merchant vessels, and of even their supercargoes; that she applied to merchant vessels and to articles of commerce, the property of private individuals, the right of capture; that she declared ports unfortified, and harbours and mouths of rivers to which she had not sent a single vessel of war, to be