My next voyage was to the West Indies; in fact, I made several voyages there, and should have made more of them had it not been for the difficulties which arose between France and England on the one hand, and the United States on the other. On one occasion the brig on which I was serving was seized by the British authorities in a West Indian port, and the cargo was confiscated for a technical violation of the laws. The confiscation of the ship, as well as the cargo, was threatened; but we succeeded in saving her, and obtaining permission to leave port. On our way home we were chased, and narrowly escaped capture, by a French ship-of-war. We were at peace with France at that time, and also with England; but England and France were at war, and they made it very annoying and risky business for neutrals to trade with either of them. In November, 1806, Napoleon issued from his camp in the capital of Prussia the famous manifesto which is called the Berlin Decree. It declared the ports of the whole of the British dominions in a state of blockade, prohibited all correspondence and commerce with the British Islands, ordered that all letters or packets written in England or to an Englishman in the English language should be seized at French post-offices, and proclaimed that all neutral vessels trading with England should be liable to seizure and confiscation. As a retaliation for this, Great Britain issued an "Order in Council," which declared that the whole coast of Europe, from the Elbe in Germany to Brest in France, was in a state of blockade, and making orders in regard to neutrals similar to those enacted by the Berlin Decree. Of course these two orders affected American commerce very seriously, as it virtually cut off our trade with the two countries with which nearly all our commerce was concerned. In December, 1807, Napoleon issued another decree at Milan, which was more rigorous, indeed, than that issued from Berlin. It declared every vessel which should submit to being searched by the British cruisers, or should pay any tax, duty, or license money to the British government, or should be found on the high seas or elsewhere, bound to or from any British port, denationalized and forfeited. Spain and Holland issued the same orders; and the effect of these various decrees was to cripple American commerce, and leave its ships rotting in the harbors where they lay. When the decrees and orders were issued they took effect immediately; all vessels then in French ports were confiscated, and their owners were unable to obtain any redress for their loss.