Saxony, whose alliance with Prussia had been a forced one, was alone spared. The Saxon prisoners were sent back free to their sovereign, and the elector was granted a favorable peace and honored with the title of king. In return for these favors he joined the Confederation of the Rhine, and such was his gratitude to Napoleon that he remained his friend and ally in the trying days when he had no other friend among the powers of Europe. The harsh measures of which we have spoken were not the only ones taken by Napoleon against his enemies. England, the most implacable of his foes, remained beyond his reach, mistress of the seas as he was lord of the land. He could only meet the islanders upon their favorite element, and in November 21, 1806, he sent from Berlin to Talleyrand, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, a decree establishing a continental embargo against Great Britain. [=The Embargo on British Commerce=] "The British Islanders," said this famous edict of reprisal, "are declared in a state of blockade. All commerce and all correspondence with them are forbidden." All letters or packets addressed to an Englishman or written in English were to be seized; every English subject found in any country controlled by France was to be made a prisoner of war; all commerce in English merchandise was forbidden, and all ships coming from England or her colonies were to be refused admittance to any port. It is hardly necessary to speak here of the distress caused, alike in Europe and elsewhere, by this war upon commerce, in which England did not fail to meet the harsh decrees of her opponent by others equally severe. The effect of these edicts upon American commerce is well known. The commerce of neutral nations was almost swept from the seas. One result was the American war of 1812, which for a time seemed as likely to be directed against France as Great Britain. [=Frederick William a Fugitive in the Russian Camp=] Meanwhile Frederick William of Prussia was a fugitive king. He refused to accept the harsh terms of the armistice offered by Napoleon, and in despair resolved to seek, with the remnant of his army, some 25,000 in number, the Russian camp, and join his forces with those of Alexander of Russia, still in arms against France. Napoleon, not content while an enemy remained in arms, with inflexible resolution resolved to make an end of all his adversaries, and meet in battle the great empire of the north. The Russian armies then occupied Poland, whose people, burning under the oppression and injustice to which they had been subjected, gladly welcomed Napoleon's specious offers to bring them back their lost liberties, and rose in his aid when he marched his armies into their country.