If Monroe flattered himself that he had for the moment checked British aggression, he quickly learned his error. The treaty had been signed barely a week when a new Order in Council appeared, which surpassed any belligerent measure of the Tories.[291] Beginning with the premise that Napoleon’s Berlin Decree “would give to his Majesty an unquestionable right of retaliation, and would warrant his Majesty in enforcing the same prohibition of all commerce with France which that Power vainly hopes to effect against the commerce of his Majesty’s subjects,” the order added that King George felt himself bound “to retort upon them the evils of their own injustice,” and therefore “ordered that no vessel shall be permitted to trade from one port to another, both which ports shall belong to, or be in the possession of, France or her allies.” In other words the Whig ministers, ignoring their fresh treaty with the United States and even the note appended to it, declared that they would not wait for America to resent the Berlin Decree, but that United States vessels must in future, as a retort for that decree, be deprived of the right to sail from one European port to another. The custom had hitherto prevailed among American shippers of seeking a market according to ruling prices, partly perhaps at Bilbao or Bordeaux, partly at some other French or Mediterranean port. Lord Howick’s order of Jan. 7, 1807, which cut short this coasting privilege, was a blow to American commerce sharper than the famous decision of Sir William Scott in the case of the “Essex.” Its apparent effect was to double the cost and risk of neutral commerce, while incidentally it asserted a right to prohibit such trade altogether. Unfortunately more remained behind. The new order was not only an act of violence; it was, according to the Tories, also one of meanness. On its face it purported to be a measure of retaliation, taken in order to retort upon France the evils of Napoleon’s injustice. In the Parliamentary debate four weeks afterward, when the order was attacked, all parties argued it as a matter of retaliation. The King’s advocate, Sir John Nicholls, who defended it, took the ground that for the moment no severer retaliation was needed; while Spencer Perceval and Lord Castlereagh held that Napoleon’s decree should have been retaliated in full. “You might turn the provisions of the French decree against themselves,” said Perceval;[292] “and as they have said that no British goods should sail freely on the seas, you might say that no goods should be carried to France except they first touched at an English port. They might be forced to be entered at the custom-house, and a certain entry imposed, which would contribute to advance the price and give a better sale in the foreign market to your own commodities.” Sir John Nicholls replied:[293]--