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| | The Continental System |
 | | England had given him an excuse for the Berlin Decree given below by declaring the coast from the river Elbe to Brest in a state of blockade (May, 1806). |
 | | X. The present decree shall be communicated by our minister of foreign affairs to the kings of Spain, of Naples, of Holland, and of Etruria, and to our other allies whose subjects, like ours, are the victims of the unjust and barbarous maritime legislation of England. |
 | | This, in spite of some alleged merciful exceptions, was almost a prohibition of neutral trading such as that carried on by the United States, and President Jefferson ordered the first embargo, December 22, 1807, as a retaliatory measure. |
| www.historyguide.org /intellect/continental.html (1007 words) |
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