It also led Napoleon to confiscate all American ships in his harbours after April 17th, 1808.
The November Orders in Council soon drew a reply from Napoleon.

He heard of them during a progress through the north of Italy, and from Milan he flung back his retort, the famous Milan Decrees of November 23rd and December 17th.

He thereby declared every neutral ship, which submitted to those orders, to be denationalized and good prize of war; and the same doom was pronounced against every vessel sailing to or from any port in the United Kingdom or its colonies or possessions.
But these measures were not to affect ships of those States that compelled Great Britain to respect their flag.

The islanders might well be dismayed at the prospect of a seclusion which promised to recall the Virgilian line: "penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos." Yet they resolved to pit the resources of the outer world against the militarism of Napoleon; and, drawing the resources of the tropics to the new power-looms of Lancashire and Yorkshire, they might well hope to pour their unequalled goods into Europe from points of vantage such as Sicily, Gibraltar, the Channel Islands, and Heligoland.

There were many Englishmen who believed that the November Orders in Council brought nothing but harm to our cause.