In the meantime preparations were made to deprive the Americans of the indirect trade from the French colonies by way of the United States to Europe. On July 23, 1805, Sir William Scott, reversing his decision in the case of the _Polly_, decided that a ship called the _Essex_ was a good prize, although in a voyage from Bordeaux she had called at Salem, discharged cargo, made repairs, and reloaded before heading away for a West India port. The all-influential British navy had joined in with the British ship-owner to demand that the American ships should be excluded from all trade between the colonies of the enemy and Europe. The ship-owners demanded it because the American ship, in spite of the great expense of the indirect voyage, was yet able to take the trade from the British, even though they were supported by free ports and other aids. The demand made by or for the British naval officers was unique. When voiced by one James Stephens (_War in Disguise; or the Frauds of the Neutral Flags_), he pictured a British admiral grown old and full of honors in the service, who, in spite of his honors, had been unable "to wrest [from the enemy] the means of comfortably sustaining those honors." As long as American ships were allowed to engage in the indirect trade, the naval officer would have to "look in vain for any subject of _safe_ and uncontested capture." If American ships were excluded, they would still take chances, and they would then be captured without danger and condemned without contest. Mere mention need be made of the British practice of taking American sailors from American ships and compelling them to serve in British war-ships. Many American merchantmen were left short-handed upon the high seas, and there is no doubt that some of them were, for this reason, lost with all hands. The practice was maintained as one method of depressing our navigation, but the subject seems to belong to our naval histories. Brief space will serve for a consideration of the various orders in council and paper blockades issued and laid in 1806 and 1807. In May, 1806, the British declared that the European coast "from the river Elbe to the port of Brest inclusive ... must be considered as blockaded." No blockading fleet was maintained. In reply to this Napoleon issued his Berlin decree declaring the British islands "in a state of blockade," and that "all commerce and correspondence with the British Islands is prohibited." The French navy was unable to go to sea; Napoleon had only a few privateers with which to enforce his decree, but the British used it as an excuse for the order in council of January 7, 1807, by which no vessel was "permitted to trade from one port to another both which ports shall" be so far under the control of the enemy "_that British vessels may not trade freely thereat_."