While carrying into effect all over Europe “the continental system,” shadowed forth in this decree, in retaliation, as Napoleon alleged, of the English “paper blockade,” and fulminating his memorable manifesto against England, its author, as is now confessed, was meditating a march to the Vistula, to compel Russia, the only remaining friend and ally of England, to turn against her, while he at the same time attempted to turn the Poles against Russia, by amusing them with the silly notion of the restoration of the kingdom of Poland under the benign protection of France, and to work upon the Sultan of Turkey, with a view to excluding England from the whole of Europe, and thus “to achieve the command of the ocean by land.” [Sidenote: Berlin decree enforced.] The news of the Berlin decree did not, however, create at first so much alarm as might have been anticipated. Its extreme rigour led the majority of shipowners to believe it could not be enforced; though more prudent parties waited to see the upshot of the affair before they hazarded their cargoes on distant voyages. Matters, consequently, remained in a very uncertain state until March 1807, when enterprising shipowners resumed their shipments. These were carried on to a moderate extent, till August 1807, when it was found to a certainty that the Berlin decree had been put in force, and that, wherever the French could send their custom and excise officers, a number of vessels and cargoes had been seized, so that a virtual suspension of all shipping to the continent took place from that date. [Sidenote: Increased rates of insurance.] The seizure of various vessels at Antwerp raised the rates of insurance from England to Holland to fifteen, twenty, and thirty guineas per cent., and, at even these exorbitant rates, the greatest difficulty was experienced in effecting an insurance. It was then when her maritime commerce had suffered severely, that the English government resolved to put in force retaliatory measures of an equally stringent character. [Sidenote: English Orders in Council, 1807.]