382 LAISSEZ FAIRE
AD. 1778 In so far then as trade was a source of profit and power
"to France, it appeared that, though we had destroyed her
shipping, we had not cut off her commerce. It was not only
carried on by neutral vessels to her own ports, but it reached
her through the neutral markets of Hamburg, Altona, Emden,
Copenhagen, Gottenburg and Lisbon. The rivers and canals
of Germany and Flanders carried produce and East Indian
fabrics in all directions from these centres, so as to affect not
only our commerce but our manufactures. “They supplant,
or rival the British planter and merchant, throughout the
continent of Europe, and in all the ports of the Mediterranean.
They supplant even the manufacturers of Manchester, Birmingham
 and Yorkshire ; for the looms and forges of Germany
are put in action by the colonial produce of our enemies, and
are rivalling us, by the ample supplies they send under the
neutral flag, to every part of the New World.” Under
these circumstances, the British Government determined to
attempt, not only to destroy French shipping, but to cut off
k'rench trade, by putting a stop to “the frauds of the
720 Bris neutral flags.” The firs definite action in the matter was
sgainst  baken in 1806, when England endeavoured to strike at the
i 5 neutral trading, by declaring a blockade along the whole of
the Channel from Brest to the Elbe. This was merely
declaratory, as the blockade was only enforced at the mouth
of the Seine? and in the narrow seas, but it gave Napoleon
the opportunity of posing as a champion who would redress
she wrongs of neutral powers. France had assumed the rdle
of the deliverer of the European peoples from privileged
tyranny, and it suited Napoleon to come forward as the
maintainer of national rights against the economic and coma
 mercial tyranny of Great Britain. In the Berlin Decree of
November 1806, he represented the Orders in Council as an
infraction of the recognised principles of International Law,

lo the disvdvantage

of British
traders.

which in fact he can obtain in war, by no other title than by the success of one
belligerent against the other and at the expense of that very belligerent under
whose success he sets up his title; and such I take to be the colonial trade
generally speaking.” Judgment of Sir William Scott, quoted in War in Disguise, 13.
+ War tn Disguise, 73, 71.
1 According to the doctrine which Napoleon maintained, the restrictions in
regard to blockade only applied to places actually invested; England claimed to
‘nterrupt commerce at ports which she had not invested.