330 Orders in Council; Berlin Decree. [isoe the Leopard was soon on deck with a letter containing a request to search for the deserters and enclosing a copy of Admiral Berkeley's order. Barren refused to muster his crew; whereupon the Leopard ranged alongside and opened fire. To return it was impossible, for the Chesapeake was just off the stocks, and had been sent to sea so hurriedly that but a few of her guns were mounted. Not a rammer could be found ; not a powder horn was full : the matches were mislaid. Twenty minutes passed before a gun could be loaded and fired with a live coal from the cook's galley. Meantime twenty-one shots from the Leopard struck the hull of the Chesapeake ; the foremast and mainmast had been destroyed and the mizzen mast injured; the rigging was badly cut ; three men were killed and eighteen wounded. Then Barron hauled down his flag and the Chesapeake was a prize. Searchers from the Leopard found but one deserter from the Halifax, the rest having deserted before the Chesapeake left harbour ; but they took away three sailors, each of whom was a citizen of the United States. The Chesapeake was then suffered to make the best of her way back to port. As the news of this action spread over the country, the people were deeply moved. They put on badges of mourning, cried out for war, and, in resolutions from a score of towns, pledged their lives and fortunes in support of any measure, however vigorous, that the Administration might adopt. The President, however, merely issued a proclamation commanding all British armed vessels to leave the ports of the United States, and despatched an agent to England to demand a disavowal of Berkeley's order, and to seek reparation for the insult. No heed was given to the proclamation. The vessels in Lynnhaven Bay came and went as they pleased ; and five years passed before the three American sailors taken from the Chesapeake were returned to the deck of an American frigate. While popular indignation was still burning fiercely, Napoleon added to the flame by another blow at the carrying trade of neutrals. In May, 1806, King George, by an Order in Council, had declared a paper blockade of the coast of Europe from the river Elbe to the port of Brest, and forbidden neutrals to enter a port within these limits unless they carried the products of their own country or of British looms and factories. That Napoleon would not tamely submit to this Order was certain ; but he bided his time till the battle of Jena made him master of central Europe. Then he issued his Berlin Decree, and on November 21, 1806, laid the British Isles under blockade. It was now the turn of Great Britain to strike ; and accordingly, on January 7, 1807, a new Order in Council forbade neutrals to trade between any two ports which were in the possession of France or her allies. As time passed, and these new orders produced no apparent effect, the British government went a step further. On November 11, 1807, a third
