The Order in Council[273] of the 11th of November is referred to even in the present day as a justification of the Berlin Decree. It ought, however, to be remembered, by those who desire to question the character of England for uprightness, that the Prussian government had previously in a forcible and hostile manner taken possession of the electorate of Hanover, and had notified “that all British ships should be excluded from the ports of the Prussian dominions, and from certain other ports in the north of Europe, and not suffered to enter or trade therein;” and had further declared (5th of April, 1806) “that no ship or vessel belonging to any of his Majesty’s subjects be permitted to enter or clear from any ports of Prussia, and that a general embargo or stop be made of all ships and vessels, at that time, or which should hereafter come into any of the ports, harbours, or roads of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, together with all persons and effects on board the said ships and vessels.” Surely, considering the circumstances of the King of Prussia’s perfidy,[274] this Order in Council must be deemed justifiable. The Order in Council of _the 16th May, 1806_, whereby all the ports from the Elbe to Brest were declared to be strictly blockaded, contained a proviso “that this blockade _shall not extend_ to _neutral vessels_ having on board merchandise _not belonging to the enemies of his Majesty_, and not contraband of war; except, however, the coast from Ostend to the mouth of the river Seine, which is hereby declared subject to a blockade of the strictest kind.” This Order in Council, which the French pronounced “barbarous,” and “a paper blockade,” etc., was actually signed by Charles James Fox himself, nor can there be any doubt that the coasts thus declared in a state of blockade were in the strictest sense subject to such declaration, since the perils of leaving the harbours embraced in it were such that hardly any one of even the enemy’s armed vessels ventured to incur them. Considering the circumstances of the times, and that Napoleon was then organising a European confederacy in order to fall upon England with his whole concentrated power, it must be admitted that the Whig Order in Council was not only justifiable by the law of nations, but imperatively called for by expediency. Orders providing for the blockade of harbours and coasts which it was at the moment in the highest degree perilous to enter, and for the interim detention of the Prussian cargoes, in retaliation for the unprovoked invasion of Hanover by the Prussian troops, and the exclusion of British commerce, all brought about by the direct intrigues of Napoleon, were clearly within the law of nations, and, moreover, seem now to have been, at the time and under the circumstances, a very moderate exercise of the rights of a belligerent. To attempt to palliate the Berlin Decrees on the grounds of the