One year after suffering a major defeat against the British Royal Navy in the Battle of Trafalgar, the French government issued the Berlin Decree prohibiting all allies of France, particularly Spain from engaging in commerce with Great Britain. Three months later in January of 1807, the British retaliated with a series of decrees condemning all trade with France and her allies, in the form of Orders in Council. These decrees made by Her Magesty's Most honourable Privy Council in effect instituted a policy of commercial warfare.
The January 1807 Orders in Council proclaimed the following: ... it is hereby ordered, that no vessel shall be permitted to trade from one port to another, both which ports shall belong to, or be in the possession of France or her allies, or shall be so far under their control as that British vessels may not freely trade thereat; and the commanders of his majesty's ships of war and privateers shall be, and are hereby instructed to warn every neutral vessel coming from any such port, and destined to another such port, to discontinue her voyage, and not to proceed to any such port; and any vessel, after being so warned, or any vessel coming from any such port after a reasonable time shall have been afforded for receiving information of this his majesty's orders which shall be found proceeding to another such port, shall be captured and brought in, and together with her cargo, shall be condemned as lawful prize.
With the help of the powerful Royal Navy, the British formed a blockade of continental Europe forbidding any trade with France or it's allies including neutral parties. In his 1807 annual address to Congress, just weeks before America would issue it's own embargo act, Jefferson plainly shared with Congress the devastating effect of the Orders in Council decree. As Jefferson described it, the British were not "now at war with nearly every nation on the Atlantic and Mediterranean seas", and soon all navigable seas would face the same threat.
"To former violations of maritime rights another is now added of very extensive effect. The Government of that nation has issued an order interdicting all trade by neutrals between ports not in amity with them; and being now at war with nearly every nation on the Atlantic and Mediterranean seas, our vessels are required to sacrifice their cargoes at the first port they touch or to return home without the benefit of going to any other market. Under this new law of the ocean our trade on the Mediterranean has been swept away by seizures and condemnations, and that in other seas is threatened with the same fate."http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29449
http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=FOEA-print-02-01-02-2460
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_in_Council_(1807)
https://www.marinersmuseum.org/sites/micro/usnavy/08/08d.htm
https://weaponsandwarfare.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/blockade_of_toulon_1810-1814.jpg
hello there I am become meme
ReplyDeleteJefferson is bad
ReplyDeleteJefferson is great.😎
Delete