But in those days England made her own international law--for the sea, at any rate--and the paper blockade was one of her pet weapons.

Captain Boyle satirized this practise by drawing up a formal proclamation of blockade of all the ports of Great Britain and Ireland, and sending it to Lloyds, where it was actually posted.

His action was not wholly a jest, either, for he did blockade the port of St.
Vincent so effectively for five days that the inhabitants sent off a pitiful appeal to Admiral Durham to send a frigate to their relief.
It was at this time, too, that the _Annual Register_ recorded as "a most mortifying reflection" that, with a navy of more than one thousand ships in commission, "it was not safe for a British vessel to sail without convoy from one part of the English or Irish Channel to another." Merchants held meetings, insurance corporations and boards of trade memorialized the government on the subject; the shipowners and merchants of Glasgow, in formal resolutions, called the attention of the admiralty to the fact that "in the short space of twenty-four months above eight hundred vessels have been captured by the power whose maritime strength we have hitherto impolitically held in contempt." It was, indeed, a real blockade of the British Isles that was effected by these irregular and pigmy vessels manned by the sailors of a nation that the British had long held in high scorn.

The historian Henry Adams, without attempting to give any complete list of captures made on the British coasts in 1814, cites these facts: "The 'Siren,' a schooner of less than 200 tons, with seven guns and seventy-five men, had an engagement with His Majesty's cutter 'Landrail,' of four guns, as the cutter was crossing the Irish sea with dispatches.

The 'Landrail' was captured, after a somewhat smart action, and was sent to America, but was recaptured on the way.