Orders in Council (1807)

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The Orders in Council of 1807 were a specific use of an order of the British Privy Council, made under the Royal prerogative, during the Napoleonic Wars. They had the effect of authorizing the Royal Navy to blockade the seaports of France and her European allies.

1 Background
2 Consequences
3 Repeal of the Orders in Council
4 References

[edit] Background

By 1806, Napoleon was master of continental Europe effectively locking the United Kingdom out of the continent. However, the defeat of the French and Spanish navies at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) ended any thoughts of an invasion of the United Kingdom. Napoleon, aware of British commercial strength, thus resorted to a policy of economic warfare, in what became known as the Continental System.

The Berlin Decree of 1806 forbade French, allied or neutral ships trading with Britain. By this means Napoleon hoped to destroy British trade, disrupt her growing industrial expansion and diminish her credit.

The United Kingdom responded with the Orders in Council of 1807 issued 11 November 1807 ^[1]. These forbade French trade with the United Kingdom, her allies or neutrals, and instructed the Royal Navy to blockade French and allied ports.

Napoleon retaliated with the Milan Decree of 1807, which declared that all neutral shipping using British ports, or paying British tariffs, were to be regarded as British and seized.

[edit] Consequences

Due to the strength of the Royal Navy, the British blockade of continental Europe was reasonably effective. French trade suffered and her primitive industrial revolution was set back. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, remained able to trade with her overseas colonies; indeed, such trade increased over the period. Smuggling naturally persisted, and Napoleon was even forced to make exceptions to his embargo in order to procure necessary supplies for his war effort.

The Battle of Copenhagen was largely a consequence of economic warfare

More significantly, enforcing the economic blockades led both the United Kingdom and France into a series of military engagements. The British bombarded Copenhagen in September 1807 (Battle of Copenhagen) to prevent the Danish joining the Continental System, and the British policy of stopping neutral ships trading with France played a large part in the outbreak of the Anglo-American War of 1812. However, it was Napoleon's invasion of Russia in the same year, again in part to enforce his continental system, that proved to be the turning point of the war. He was never able to recover militarily from that defeat.

The economic warfare ended with Napoleon's final defeat in 1815.

[edit] Repeal of the Orders in Council

The British made their greatest concession to the United States in June of 1812 just as the United States was declaring war. On June 16, 1812, two days before the United States declaration of war, Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs announced in Parliament of the United Kingdom that the Order in Council would be suspended.^[2]

On the very day that the Minister took his formal leave of the United States, June 23, 1812, a new British Government headed by Lord Liverpool provisionally repealed the Order in Council.^[3]

Forty-one days after the United States Congress declared war, the word arrived in London on July 29, 1812. Two days later, July 31, 1812, the Ministry ordered its first counter-measures. It forbade English ships to sail except in convoys and restrained American ships in English ports. The Orders in Council had been repealed on June 23, 1812, but the ministers did not intend to take additional measures until they could learn the American reaction. Word of the repeal of the Orders did not reach President James Madison until August 12, 1812, some fifty days later. Even then he refused to halt hostilities because he did not know how Britain had reacted to the declaration of war. ^[4]