ny French port on the Channel. Fifteen vessels would
occupy such a line, with intervals of only six miles, and in
combination with a much smaller body at the Straits of Dover would
assuredly bring all the French coast between them within the limits of
any definition of danger. That these particular dispositions were
adopted does not appear; but that very much larger numbers were
continually moving in the Channel, back and forth in every direction,
is certain. As to the remainder of the coast declared under
restriction, from the Straits to the Elbe,--about four hundred
miles,--with the great entrances to Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, the
Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, there can be no doubt that it was within
the power of Great Britain to establish the blockade within the
requirements of international law. Whether she did so was a question
of fact, on which both sides were equally positive. The British to the
last asserted that an adequate force had been assigned, "and actually
maintained,"[132] while the blockade lasted.

The incident derived its historical significance chiefly from
subsequent events. It does not appear at the first to have engaged the
special attention of the United States Government, the general
position of which, as to blockades, was already sufficiently defined.
The particular instance was only one among several, and interest was
then diverted to two other leading points,--impressment and the
colonial trade. Peculiar importance began to attach to it only in the
following November, when Napoleon issued his Berlin decree. Upon this
ensued the exaggerated oppressions of neutral commerce by both
antagonists; and the question arose as to the responsibility for
beginning the series of measures, of which the Berlin and Milan
Decrees on one side, and the British Orders in Council of 1807 and
1809 on the other, were the most conspicuous features. Napoleon
contended that the whole sprang from the extravagant pretensions of
Great Britain, particularly in the Order of May 16, which he, in
common with the United States, characterized as illegal. The British
Government affirmed that it was strictly within belligerent rights,
and was executed by an adequate force; that consequently it gave no
ground for the course of the French Emperor. American statesmen, while
disclaiming with formal gravity any purpose to decide with which of
the two wrong-doers the ill first began,[133] had no scruples about
reiterating consta