Preamble

Like most of the measures of both parties, the Berlin decree purported to be a measure of reprisal rendered necessary by numerous aggressions of the adversary; but its regulations were nevertheless solemnly proclaimed as embodying 'the fundamental principles of the Empire', until England disavowed her false pretensions. In content the regulations, as is usual in French ordinances, are very clear, at least at first sight, although they were gradually to prove, intentionally or unintentionally, rather ambiguous. The preamble states: (1) that England does not acknowledge international law; (2) that she treats all enemy subjects as enemies (this is directed against her legislation against alien enemies); (3) that she extends the right of capture to merchant vessels and merchandise and private property; (4) that she extends the blockade to unfortified places (a reproach which forms a reminiscence of the siege character of a blockade) and to places where she has not a single ship of war; (5) that she uses the right of blockade with no other object than that of hampering intercourse between peoples and building up her own trade and industry on the ruins of the trade and industry of the Continent; (6) that trade in English goods involves complicity in her plans; (7) that her proceedings have benefited her at the expense of everybody else; (8) and, consequently, that retaliation is justifiable. It is further stated, therefore, that the Emperor intends to use her methods against her, and accordingly that the regulations will remain permanently in force until England has acknowledged that the law of war is the same by land and by sea and cannot be extended to private property and unarmed individuals, and that blockade shall be restricted to fortified places guarded by sufficient forces.