The Berlin Decree, which is generally considered to have inaugurated the Continental System in form, is, in fact, antedated by the Orders in Council of Great Britain. During 1801 English commerce was considerably greater than it was during 1802, the year of nominal peace; and this was due, of course, to the fact that the commercial welfare was not even nominally discontinued. The real trouble felt by Lord Whitworth, the British ambassador at Paris, was that the existing commercial situation of his country was intolerable, and that he must find some _casus belli_ in order to end it. We have explained how he fixed on a very trivial pretext, the conduct of Bonaparte at a public reception in the Tuileries, and that Great Britain had much difficulty in making the flimsy excuse appear important. The fact was that the First Consul was using the peace to extend the protective system of France over all the lands which he had conquered in northern and central Italy and to force Holland and Switzerland into his customs union. In consequence English commerce was suffering, and the mission of Sebastiani into the Orient made it seem highly probable to English merchants that the process of further diminishing their trade was already under way in those distant parts. The publication of Sebastiani's report was the last straw in the burden of the British merchants, and they refused to carry the load any longer. Bonaparte said that the independence of a nation carried with it the absolute control of its trade, and that if Great Britain intended to keep both Gibraltar and Malta, she virtually announced by that fact her determination to unite the commerce of the Indies, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic in a single system controlled by herself, which would create a situation intolerable and impossible. The Peace of Amiens was merely a truce, and the only question as to its duration was one of reciprocal forbearance and endurance. As soon as it became clear that neither England nor France would abandon the idea of commercial supremacy, the vital matter of policy on both sides was how to reopen the war. To do this was to assume a fearful burden of responsibility. History is still striving to determine who gave the immediate impulse; for whoever did give it is held responsible for the appalling bloodshed of the Napoleonic as distinguished from the republican wars. To-day even the English historians of the most enlightened sort admit that France was tricked into the declaration of war. The coalition was in process of formation within a few days after the ink was dry on the treaty of Campo Formio; it was in readiness when hostilities broke out; and the fuel necessary to make the intermittent flickering flames burst forth anew was supplied by the successive Orders in Council.