"All commerce, and all correspondence, with the British Isles are forbidden. Consequently, letters or packets addressed to England, or to an Englishman, or written in the English language, will not pass through the post, and will be seized. "Every individual English subject, whatever may be his state or condition, who shall be found in the countries occupied by our troops, or in the countries of our allies, shall be made prisoner of war. "Every warehouse, all merchandise, all property of whatsoever nature it may be, belonging to an English subject, shall be deemed lawful prizes. "Commerce in English merchandise is forbidden; any ships coming directly from England or from the English colonies, or having been there since the publication of the present decree, shall not be admitted into any port." The Emperor Napoleon was right in recognizing, in his declaration to the Senate, that it was lamentable, after so many years of civilization, to recur to the principles, the barbarism, of the first ages of nations; and the pretexts which he adduced for this necessity were as insufficient as the consequences that flowed from his policy were odious. More than once the English had replied by violent and rude proceedings to the proceedings of the same nature in which Napoleon had for a long time been indulging on all seas. They had claimed to interdict the commerce of neutrals by imprudent and unjust "Orders in Council;" a still more inexcusable iniquity fettered at one stroke the commerce of Europe in all its branches, carrying annoyance into all families, and arbitrarily modifying the conditions of all existence. From henceforth, in the poorest household, no one could forget for a single day the power and the vengeance of the Emperor Napoleon, as well as the death grapple between him and England. It is a terrible undertaking for the most powerful of men to change on all sides the habits of life, and lay his hands upon the daily interests, of every one. The continental blockade was in Napoleon's hands a redoubtable weapon against his enemy; the firmness of England and the general distress, were yet cruelly to turn that weapon against his own bosom.