These aggressions on land and insults at sea continued, at intervals, down to 1806, when our commerce received a more deadly blow from the British orders in council, and Napoleon's famous Berlin and Milan decrees. To annoy and cripple her adversary, England declared the whole coast of France, from Brest to the Elbe, in a state of blockade. Napoleon retaliated by the Berlin decree, in which he declared the British Islands in a state of blockade. The next year the English government issued other orders in council, blockading the whole continent, which were met by Napoleon's Milan decree. These famous orders in council, so far as they affected us, declared all American vessels going to and from the harbors of France and her allies, lawful prizes, except such as had first touched at, or cleared from an English port. The Berlin and Milan decrees, on the other hand, pronounced all vessels that had so touched at an English port, or allowed themselves to be searched by a British cruiser, the property of France, while British goods, wherever found, were subject to confiscation. In short, if we did not confine our commerce to England, the latter would seize our merchantmen, wherever found, as lawful prizes, while if we did trade with her, or even touch at her ports at all, France claimed them as her property. England, without the slightest provocation, had commenced a war against France, and irritated at her want of success, declared her coast in a state of blockade--thus violating an established law of nations. The principle has long been admitted and acted upon by the principal maritime nations of the world, that neutral flags have a right to sail from port to port of the belligerent powers, to carry any merchandise whatever, except those contraband of war, such as arms, munitions of war, or provisions for the enemy. The only exception to it is an actual blockade of a port where neutrals are forbidden an entrance. This principle is founded in common justice; otherwise two strong maritime nations might make a third neutral power the greatest sufferer from the war. Besides, if the right to create paper blockades is allowed, no restrictions can be placed upon it, and in case of another war with England, she could declare the whole coast of America, from Maine to Mexico, and that portion of our territory on the Pacific, in a state of blockade, while the naval force of the world could not maintain an _actual_ one.