His retort in the interests of outraged law was certainly curious; he declared our 3,000 miles of coast in a state of blockade--a mere _brutum fulmen_ in point of fact, but designed to give a show of legality to his Continental System.

Yet, apart from this thin pretext, he troubled very little about law.
Indeed, blockade is an act of war; and its application to this or that part or coast depends on the will and power of the belligerents.
Napoleon frankly recognized that fact; and, however much his preambles appealed to law, his conduct was decided solely by expediency.

When he wanted peace (along with Sicily) he said nothing about our maritime claims: when the war went on, he used them as a pretext for an action that was ten times as stringent.
The gauntlet thrown down by him at Berlin was promptly taken up by Great Britain.

An Order in Council of January 7th, 1807, forbade neutrals to trade between the ports of France and her allies, or between ports that observed the Berlin Decree, under pain of seizure and confiscation of the ship and cargo.

In return Napoleon issued from Warsaw (January 27th) a decree, ordering the seizure in the Hanse Towns of all English goods and colonial produce.