Pinkney maintained that the French Decrees were revoked and that Fox’s blockade was illegal. Neither position was beyond attack. The American doctrine of blockade was by no means clear. The British government never attempted to defend its sweeping Orders of 1807 and 1809 on the ground of legality; these were admittedly illegal, and a proper _casus belli_ if America chose to make war on their account. England claimed only that the United States were bound to make war on France for the Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806, before making war on England for her retaliatory Orders of 1807. In order to evade this difficulty, France declared that her Decree of November, 1806, was retaliatory on Fox’s blockade of May, 1806. America began by maintaining that as far as concerned neutral commerce both belligerents used retaliation for illegitimate objects, and that the United States might rightfully declare war against either or both. The position was easily understood, and had the advantage of being historically true; but the United States stood on less certain ground when they were drawn into discussion of the legal theory involved in Fox’s blockade. England held[4] that Fox’s blockade of May, 1806, covering the French coast from the Elbe to Brest, was a lawful blockade, supported by a particular naval force detached for that special purpose and sufficient for its object, until the blockade itself was merged in the avowedly extra-legal paper-blockades of 1809; and that if the paper-blockades were withdrawn, Great Britain had the right to re-establish Fox’s blockade with an efficient naval force to execute it. President Madison held a different opinion. He insisted,[5] and ordered Pinkney to insist, that a particular port must be invested by a particular naval force; and that Great Britain ought not to contend that her naval force was adequate to blockade a coast a thousand miles long. On this ground the President, July 5, 1810,[6] instructed Pinkney to require the annulment of Fox’s blockade as “palpably at variance with the law of nations.” In order to prove the impartiality of this demand, the President promised to insist that the repeal required from France as its counterpart should “embrace every part of the French Decrees which violate the neutral rights guaranteed to us by the law of nations.”