Note 220 — Chapter XV

To the “celebrated decrees” which followed these laws, that of Berlin of the 21st of November, 1806, and that of Milan 17th of December, 1807, and to our “Orders in Council,” which were all mere acts of war, I have already referred at considerable length (see ante, vol. ii., Chaps. VIII., IX., and XI.). In regard to these Acts, nations would do well to refer to the saying of Napoleon himself, in 1816, at the commencement of his exile, “We must fall back for the future on the open navigation of the seas, and on the entire liberty of universal trade.”—Memorial of St. Helena, 12th June, 1816.