| Origins of theWar of 1812 |
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The 1807Orders in Council were a series of decrees, in the form ofOrders in Council, made by thePrivy Council of the United Kingdom in the course of thewars with Napoleonic France which instituted its policy ofcommercial warfare. The Orders are important for the role they played in shaping the British war effort against France, but they are also significant for the strained relations—and sometimes military conflict—they caused betweenGreat Britain and neutral countries, whose trade was affected by them.
In Europe, restrictive British trade policy, as enacted in the Orders, led to the formation of theSecond League of Armed Neutrality and deteriorating relations with other neutral powers, notablyDenmark (with whom the British would fight aseries of wars) andRussia. In the Atlantic, the Orders in Council were one of the main sources of tension between the United Kingdom and the United States which led to theWar of 1812.
Formally, an "Order in Council" is an order by theSovereign at a meeting of thePrivy Council by which theBritish government decrees policies. This type of legislation is still used on occasion, particularly in the exercise of theRoyal Prerogative.
Especially in American history, the term "the Orders in Council" is also used collectively to refer to the group of such orders in the late 18th and early 19th centuries which restricted neutral trade and enforced a naval blockade ofNapoleonic France and its allies. In total, the collective term "Orders in Council" refers to more than a dozen sets of blockade decrees in the years 1783, 1793, 1794, 1798, 1799, 1803–1809, 1811, and 1812; it is most often associated in particular with the decrees of 7 January 1807, 11 November 1807, and 26 April 1809 which were most inflammatory to the Americans.
By 1806,Napoleon was master of continental Europe, effectively locking Great Britain out of the continent. However, the defeat of the French and Spanish navies at theBattle of Trafalgar (1805) ended any thoughts of an invasion of Great Britain. Napoleon, aware of British commercial strength, thus resorted to a policy of economic warfare, in what became known as theContinental System.
In response to a British Order in Council of 16 May 1806, which had declared all ports fromBrest to theElbe to be under a state of blockade,Napoleon issued theBerlin Decree of 21 November 1806, which forbade French, allied or neutral ships to trade with Britain. By this means, Napoleon hoped to destroy British trade, disrupt its growing industrial expansion, diminish its credit, and ultimately force a peace settlement.
Great Britain responded with theOrders in Council of 1807 issued on 6 January and 11 November 1807, extending the range and scope of the blockade instituted the previous year.[1] These forbade French trade with Great Britain, its allies, or neutrals, and instructed the Royal Navy to blockade French and allied ports. This order required all shipment to stop in English ports to be checked for military supplies that could have aided France. Ships that did not stop to be checked at English ports were liable to British seizure.
On 17 December 1807, Napoleon retaliated with theMilan Decree, which declared that all neutral shipping using British ports, or paying British tariffs, were to be regarded as British and seized.
Due to the strength of the Royal Navy, the British blockade of continental Europe was reasonably effective. French trade suffered, and its primitive industrial revolution was set back. Great Britain, on the other hand, actually increased trade with its overseas colonies over the period. Smuggling persisted, and even Napoleon made exceptions to his embargo so he could procure necessary supplies for his war effort.
More significantly, enforcing the economic blockades led both Great Britain 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-AmericanWar of 1812 (the three laws most repugnant to the Americans were in fact repealed five days after the declaration of war, but before Prime MinisterLord Liverpool was aware of it). However, it wasNapoleon'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.
The British made their greatest concession to the United States in June 1812. On 16 June 1812, two days before the United States declaration of war,Lord Castlereagh, theSecretary of State for Foreign Affairs announced inParliament that the Order in Council would be suspended.[2]
On the very day thatthe Minister took his formal leave from the United States, 23 June 1812, a new British government headed byLord Liverpool provisionally repealed the Order in Council.[3]
Forty-one days after theUnited States Congress declared war, the news reached London on 29 July 1812. Two days later, the Ministry ordered its first counter-measures. It forbade British ships to sail except in convoys, and restrained American ships in British ports. The Orders in Council had been repealed on 23 June 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 reachPresident James Madison until 12 August 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]