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These extraordinary measures having been long conceived by Napoleon, were now, in the full tide of his continental victories, launched against the commerce of England. It will be seen by the calm perusal of this famous but outrageous document, how well Napoleon knew how to frame his edicts in a form to captivate the multitude, to mask his ulterior objects under the appearance of liberty, and to assume the character of a redresser of the wrongs of nations oppressed by the alleged malignity of England. But his staunchest encomiasts have scarcely dared to justify this atrocious decree, or to support his pretence that it was merely issued to compel the English to renounce the supremacy over the ocean, or to intimidate the agents connected with English shipping, and principally the merchants of the Hanseatic towns, whom he stigmatised as "smugglers by profession," as they had contrived, in spite of the raging of hostilities, as all merchants will contrive, to pour into the continent every description of merchandise.

M. Thiers states that Talleyrand knew nothing of this decree until it was made public, although