Last post, I described Madison's reaction to France's promise to revoke it's edicts after receiving notice of Macons bill. Jefferson explained, that the promise was made without any follow-up action. It was an empty promise, and now to make matters even more complicated, the British Government had promised that Great Britain would also revoke her orders, if and when France revoked it's edict. At face value, this all seemed promising, but Madison explained in his second annual address that the pledge did not include all of the Orders in Council. In 1810, Americans were especially angered at the Orders in Council of 1807, but there were actually about a dozen set of decrees between 1783 and 1812. Each "Orders in Council" was an order by the Sovereign at a meeting of the Privy Council in Great Britain. Collectively the orders which restricted neutral trade with France and her allies became known as the "Orders In Council", especially here in the U.S. Great Britain had promised to remove the orders but not the blockades. This made little sense, since as Madison stated, under the 1809 Orders in Council, there was little or no distinction between the orders and the blockades. The blockades which were in violation of the laws of nations, had yet to be rescinded by the British, even after being brought to the attention of the British Government by our minister. Without relinquishing of the naval blockades, the pledge had no effect on neutral commerce. So, in general the whole thing was a mess. France was not showing any real evidence of revoking her edicts, and Great Britain was promising to revoke her blockades in name only.
Here are the actual words of James Madison from his second annual address to Congress on the subject:
"From the British Government no communication on the subject of the act has been received. To a communication from our minister at London of a revocation by the French Government of its Berlin and Milan decrees it was answered that the British system would be relinquished as soon as the repeal of the French decrees should have actually taken effect and the commerce of neutral nations have been restored to the condition in which it stood previously to the promulgation of those decrees. This pledge, although it does not necessarily import, does not exclude the intention of relinquishing, along with the others in council, the practice of those novel blockades which have a like effect of interrupting our neutral commerce, and this further justice to the United States is the rather to be looked for, in as much as the blockades in question, being not more contrary to the established law of nations than inconsistent with the rules of blockade formally recognized by Great Britain herself, could have no alleged basis other than the plea of retaliation alleged as the basis of the orders in council.
Under the modification of the original orders of 1807 November, into the orders of 1809 April, there is, indeed, scarcely a nominal distinction between the orders and the blockades. One of those illegitimate blockades, bearing date in 1806 May, having been expressly avowed to be still unrescinded, and to be in effect comprehended in the orders in council, was too distinctly brought within the purview of the act of Congress not to be comprehended in the explanation of the requisites to a compliance with it. The British Government was accordingly apprised by our minister near it that such was the light in which the subject was to be regarded."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29452
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_in_Council_(1807)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Slaget_p%C3%A5_reden.jpg
I don't understand please put more detail
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