[Footnote 55: Afterwards sixth Earl of Carlisle.] CHAPTER XXI The Decrees of Berlin--Napoleon renews the campaign--Warsaw taken--Enthusiasm of the Poles--Retreat of the Russians--Battle of Pultusk--The French go into winter quarters--Battle of Preuss-Eylau--Taking of Dantzick--Battle of Friedland--Armistice--Expeditions of the English to Calabria, Constantinople, Egypt, and Buenos Ayres--Peace of Tilsit. Napoleon had achieved the total humiliation of the Prussian monarchy in a campaign of a week's duration: yet severe as the exertions of his army had been, and splendid his success, and late as the season was now advanced, there ensued no pause of inaction: the Emperor himself remained but a few days in Berlin. This brief residence, however, was distinguished by the issue of the famous _decrees of Berlin_; those extraordinary edicts by which Buonaparte hoped to sap the foundations of the power of England--the one power which he had no means of assailing by his apparently irresistible arms. Napoleon declared the British Islands to be in a state of blockade: any intercourse with that country was henceforth to be a crime; all her citizens found in any country in alliance with France to be prisoners; every article of English produce or manufacture, wherever discovered, to be confiscated. In a word, wherever France had power, the slightest communication with England was henceforth to be treason against the majesty of Napoleon; and every coast of Europe was to be lined with new armies of _douaniers_ and _gens-d'armes_, for the purpose of carrying into effect what he called "the continental system."