The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II

The proposal to include the Spanish people in the negotiations was rejected by both France and Russia. Napoleon, having in the mean time returned to Paris, left there on the 29th of October to take command of the armies, which, to the number of over three hundred thousand men of all arms, had either entered Spain or were rapidly converging upon it. On the 8th of November he crossed the frontier, and on the 4th of December Madrid surrendered. Northern Spain being overrun and subdued, the capital having fallen without any real resistance, and the political prestige of the insurrection being thus seriously, if not hopelessly, injured, the emperor now proposed to divide the mass of soldiers that had so far acted under his own supreme direction. In the disorganized and helpless condition of the Spanish people, with the proved weakness and imbecility of the provisional governments, a dispersion that might otherwise be unwise became admissible. Army corps under his marshals were to overrun the southern provinces of the Peninsula, while an overwhelming force under his personal leadership was to cross the frontier, and carry the eagles to Lisbon, in accordance with his boast made before leaving Paris. From this determination he was turned aside by the sudden intelligence that the small body of British troops, commanded by Sir John Moore, which he supposed to be retreating toward Lisbon, and which he expected to drive on board the ships there, had cut loose from their connection with it, and, by a daring move to the north, were threatening his own lines of communication with France. Upon the receipt of this news, on the 21st of December, he at once postponed his previous purposes to the necessity of dislodging and driving out of Spain the little force, of less than twenty-five thousand men, that had dared thus to traverse his plans. Thus was Napoleon headed from his course by an imperious military necessity, and Spain saved at a most critical moment, by the petty army which had come from the sea, and which had only dared to make this move—well nigh desperate at the best—because it knew that, in the inevitable retreat, it would find in the sea no impassable barrier, but a hospitable host,—in truth, its own country. The Peninsula gained the time to breathe, which, unless under stern compulsion, Napoleon never granted to an enemy; and the opportunity thus lost to him never again returned.

Thus opened the year 1809. Napoleon at the head of eighty thousand men was driving before him, through the snows of northwestern Spain, some twenty thousand British troops, with the relentless energy that distinguished all his movements of pursuit. In the north, Russia, having completed the conquest of Finland, was now preparing to invade Sweden on the west of the Baltic, the king of that country was on the point of being dethroned on account of insanity, and the policy of the nation was tending to a peace with its gigantic enemy; which the latter refused to grant except upon the condition of joining the alliance against Great Britain. To this Sweden was most unwilling to accede. Her people depended wholly upon their produce of naval stores and grain and upon maritime commerce. Hence, to lose the freedom of their trade was almost tantamount to destruction, and the British ministry from the first saw that, whatever steps Sweden might be forced to take, its real wishes must be to keep open intercourse with Great Britain. From the anxious and delicate position of this small country, between these opposing claims, arose the necessity of great prudence and caution on the part of the British government, of its diplomatic representative, and of the admiral commanding the fleet. The task ultimately devolved upon the latter, when Sweden was at last forced into formal war; and to his sound judgment and self-restraint was largely due that no actual collision took place, and that, in the decisive moments of 1812, she, despite her serious causes of complaint against the czar, sided with Russia, instead of against her.

In Central Europe, Austria, since the peace of Presburg, 390 three years before, had been quietly engaged in restoring her military strength. The various changes which had taken place in Germany during that time, the establishment and growth of the Confederation of the Rhine, the destruction of the power of Prussia, the foundation of the Duchy of Warsaw, combined with the great losses of territory which she had herself undergone, had left Austria in a position that she could not possibly accept as final; while the alliance between Russia and France placed her in a state of isolation, which Napoleon had been careful to emphasize during the meeting at Erfurt. The renewal of the war between herself and France was therefore in the nature of things. The only question to be decided was when to declare it; 391 but this was a matter which Napoleon, who fully understood the political situation, was not in the habit of allowing an enemy to determine. He undertook his Spanish enterprise with the full knowledge that his absence, and that of his Grand Army, in the Peninsula must be short; he understood that a prolonged stay there, caused by lack of immediate and decisive success, would give Austria the opportunity she needed; but he had reasonable expectation of accomplishing his task, and returning with his army to his eastern frontiers, within a safe period of time. This hope was frustrated by the action of Sir John Moore. The year 1809 therefore opened with the prospect of war impending over the two empires. "From the frontiers of Austria to the centre of Paris," wrote Metternich, "I have found but one opinion accepted by the public,—that is, that in the spring at latest, Austria will take the field against France. This conclusion is drawn from the relative position of the two powers." 392

Underlying the other contentions, affecting them all with the unheeded, quiet, but persistent action which ordinarily characterizes the exertions of sea power, fermenting continually in the hearts of the people, was the commercial warfare, the absence of that maritime peace for which the nations sighed. The Berlin and Milan decrees on the one side, the Orders in Council on the other, were still, at the opening of 1809, in full force. France, which especially needed the concurrence of neutral carriers, had taken away even the slight chances of reaching her ports which British cruisers might leave, by pronouncing confiscation on any ship which had submitted to a search, though it was powerless to resist. Great Britain, on the other hand, having shut out all competition with her own trade to the Continent by the blockade, which forbade direct access to neutral ships, was prepared to avail herself of every chance to force upon Europe, at any point, and by any means, neutral or other, any and all merchandise, manufactured or colonial, which came from her own warehouses. For this the license system offered a means of which neutrals were only too ready to avail themselves. A British license could admit them to any port from which a British blockade excluded them; and, as it was only to be obtained legitimately in a British port, the neutral carriers, when there, naturally filled up with the most paying cargo, whatever its origin.

In the years from 1806 to 1810, as at earlier periods of the revolutionary wars, Holland and the Hanse towns competed for the profits of this indirect and often contraband trade. In June, 1806, Napoleon, in pursuance of his policy of placing members of his own family upon the thrones of the Continent, had obtained the conversion of Holland from a republic to a monarchy and bestowed its crown upon his brother Louis. The latter sought from the first to identify himself with his new subjects, and constantly withstood the commands of Napoleon in favor of their interests. Foremost among these was maritime commerce, for which geographical position and generations of habit especially fitted the Dutch. With such dispositions on the part of the king, notwithstanding the jealous watchfulness and sharp remonstrances of the emperor, evasions were frequent, and the decrees even openly disregarded on different pretences. The whole community naturally engaged in undertakings at once so consonant to its habits and so remunerative when successful. From the time the Berlin decree was issued until after the war with Austria in 1809, Napoleon's attention, though often angrily attracted by Holland and the neglect of his orders, was still too much diverted to admit of the decisive measures needed to enforce them. First, the Russian war in 1807, then the affairs of the Peninsula extending through 1808, finally the Austrian war in 1809 with his hazardous position between the battles of Essling and Wagram, accompanied as the whole period was with financial difficulties and expedients due to the straits of the empire under the cessation of maritime commerce, occupied his mind almost wholly, and allowed but partial attention to the Continental System.

Neutral ships therefore continued to be openly admitted into Holland, and the emperor's demands for their confiscation to be eluded; and there was besides much smuggling, for which the character of the coast and its nearness to England offered ample facilities. From Holland the goods usually found their way without great difficulty into France, though on two occasions Napoleon, to punish Holland for her waywardness, closed the frontier against her. "Your Majesty," wrote he to Louis, "took advantage of the moment in which I had embarrassments upon the Continent, to allow the relations between Holland and England to be resumed; to violate the laws of the blockade, the only measure by which that power can be seriously injured. I showed my dissatisfaction by forbidding France to you, and made you feel that, without having recourse to my armies, I could, by closing the Rhine, the Weser, the Scheldt, and the Meuse to Holland, place her in a position more critical than by declaring war against her. I was so isolating her as to annihilate her. The blow resounded in Holland. Your Majesty appealed to my generosity.... I removed the line of custom-houses; but your Majesty returned to your former system. It is true I was then at Vienna, and had a grievous war upon my hands. All the American ships which entered the ports of Holland, while they were repelled from those of France, your Majesty received. I have been obliged a second time to close my custom-houses to Dutch commerce.... I will not conceal my intention to re-unite Holland to France, to round off her territory, as the most disastrous blow I can deal to England." He consented, however, to suspend his action, upon condition that the existing stores of colonial merchandise were confiscated, as well as the cargoes of the American ships. 393

The important part played in the former war by Hamburg and Bremen, as commercial centres and warehouses for continental trade, has already been mentioned. To a certain extent they still fulfilled the same function, but under greatly altered conditions. The political changes following the war of 1806 and 1807, and the presence of French troops in Prussian fortresses and throughout Northern Germany, combined to make them subservient, as Prussia was, to the emperor's wishes. In point of form the continental blockade extended throughout all this region, as in Holland; everywhere vessels and merchandise coming from Great Britain were proscribed and should be confiscated, whenever found. 394 All the shores of the North Sea, those of Denmark, and, by the co-operation of the czar, the coasts of the Baltic, shared the general prohibition. The minister of France at Hamburg found his chief occupations in either demanding subsidies—contributions in money or kind—for the French troops, or in insisting, much against his will, upon increased severity against the introduction of British goods. The distress occasioned by these stringent requirements was very great, even while Napoleon's other preoccupations lasted; but the general consent of all the people in passive resistance, the activity of smugglers, and the corruption that ever hangs about custom-houses and increases with the duties, conspired to mitigate the privations. The coasts of the North Sea, between the mouths of the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, and those of Danish Holstein, low, of difficult approach for large vessels, and hence favorable to the multiplication of small boats and the operations of those having local knowledge, fostered smuggling; to which also conduced the numbers of fishermen, and the fringe of off-lying islands, out of the reach of the ordinary custom-house officer.

To support this contraband trade, the British, on the 5th of September, 1807, seized Heligoland and converted it into a depot for goods waiting to be introduced into Germany or Holstein. "A garrison of six hundred men defended the island, and ships of war cruised continually in its neighborhood. From there contraband traders obtained merchandise, with which they supplied the Continent. Farmers along the coast received these smuggled goods, which were taken from them during the night and spread far and wide. The populations of the various countries aided the smugglers, joined them in opposing the revenue officers and in seducing the latter from their duty." 395 Between Holstein and Hamburg was drawn up a close line of custom-house officials; but the forbidden goods leaked through all barriers. "More than six thousand persons of the lower and middle classes passed their day in going more than twenty times from Altona, in Holstein, to Hamburg. Punishments and confiscations fell upon the guilty; but this did not put an end to the incessant strife, sometimes by cunning, sometimes by force, against this fiscal tyranny." 396 Between five and six hundred women were employed by the merchants of Hamburg daily to convey into the city, each of them, fourteen pounds of coffee and other produce, concealed beneath their garments. 397

In the Baltic conditions were somewhat different. Much there depended upon the heartiness of the czar in the cause; upon whether he would content himself with a bare perfunctory compliance with the letter of his engagements at Tilsit and Erfurt, or would decisively enforce an entire cessation of traffic with Great Britain. The latter course, however, was impossible to Alexander. Impulsive and ambitious, he yet lacked the hardness of character needed to disregard the cold disapproval of the nobles and the distress of his subjects. Under the influence of Napoleon's presence, of his fascination and his promises, it had seemed possible to do that which in the isolation of his court, and deprived of sympathy, became drearily monotonous; nor did Napoleon, by fidelity to his word, make the task easier. Decrees of great severity were issued, 398 and the British flag was honestly excluded; but the quick mercantile intelligence soon detected that no ill-timed curiosity as to ships' papers would be exercised, 399 nor vexatious impediments thrown in the way of exporting the national products, which, if essential to Great Britain's naval supremacy, were no less the source of Russia's wealth. In truth, British consumption of naval stores, and British capital invested in Russia, had been leading elements in the prosperity of the country; and it had been no light sacrifice to concede such advantages as the czar had already yielded.

Such was the working condition of the Continental System between 1806 and 1810. Despite the general disquietude in Great Britain and the undoubted impediments raised to that free export upon which her prosperity was based, the general confidence was unabated. 400 Much was hoped from the resistance of the continental peoples, more from their steadfast evasion of the edicts. In 1806, just before the Berlin decree was issued, but when the system was already in force, a commercial magazine wrote: "The regulations adopted only show the ignorance of the French government of commercial principles. When the blockade of the Elbe was removed, instead of finding markets exhausted and prices enhanced, they were found overstocked." 401 "In spite of every prohibition British goods continue (Dec. 1, 1806) to find their way in vast quantities into France. They are exported hence on French orders. It is easy to insure them for the whole transit to the town in France where they are to be delivered to the purchaser. They are introduced at almost all parts of the land confines of the French Empire. No sooner are they received into the French merchant's warehouse, than evidence is procured that they are of French manufacture; the proper marks are stamped, and the goods are in a state to be exhibited, in proof that the manufactures of France quite outrival those of England. The writer had this information from gentlemen who have a concern in the trade to which it relates." 402 "Though the port of Venice is now totally shut against British commerce, as also the peninsula of Istria from whence Italian silk has always been obtained, yet through neutral vessels we now obtain Piedmont silk, which is the best and finest, direct from Leghorn, Lucca, and Genoa." 403 "From Malta a brisk trade, yielding quick returns, is kept up with the ports of Italy. Malta is the emporium, the storehouse. From Malta we supply Leghorn and other places in the power of France. But the British goods are sold, even before they are landed, for ready money; and scarcely a pound's worth of British property is at any moment hazarded where the French might seize it." 404

Indications of embarrassment now begin to accumulate, but still, in January, 1808, we read: "Several ships from Holland have lately entered our harbors, and brought over large quantities of goods usually imported from Hamburg. This is a proof of the futility of Bonaparte's commercial speculations." 405 Russia had by this declared against Great Britain, causing a rise in all Russian produce; and the Embargo Act of the United States had just gone into operation. There is a vast falling off in the Baltic and American trade. In 1805 over eleven thousand ships had passed through the Sound, going and coming; in 1807 barely six thousand, and British ships are excluded from all but Swedish harbors. In August, 1808, the ports of Holland are opened for the export of Dutch butter, and two hundred bales of silk are allowed to be smuggled out, for which a bribe of six thousand guineas was extorted by some person in authority. 406 In 1809 a notice again occurs of the ports of Holland being opened by the king; and concurrently, West India produce, which has been for some months dull, is found more in demand and commanding good prices. 407 Malta is doing a famous business at the same time, and has become one of the greatest depots in the Mediterranean. 408

The year 1809 was marked by a great, though temporary, revival of trade, due to several causes. Napoleon himself was detained during great part of the year in the heart of Austria, absorbed in one of his most doubtful contests with the empire; and in his absence trade with the North Sea ports went on almost as in time of peace. In the United States an eager British minister, of politics opposed to the party in power, had committed himself without due authority to an official statement to the government that the Orders in Council would be rescinded by June 10. The President, without waiting to hear further, removed the restrictions of the Non-Intercourse Act on that date; and accordingly, for some months there was free traffic and a very great interchange of goods between the United States and Great Britain. In South America, the withdrawal of the Portuguese court to Brazil and the uprising of Spain against Napoleon had resulted in throwing open the colonial ports to Great Britain; and an immense wave of speculative shipments, heavily employing the manufactories, was setting in that direction. In the Baltic, the czar was wearying of his engagements with France, and of the emperor's tergiversations; wearying too, of the opposition of his court and subjects. He adhered faithfully, indeed, to the letter of his bargain and refused admission to British ships: but he would not open his eyes to the fact that British commerce was being carried on in his ports by neutrals with British licenses. He had never promised to exclude neutrals, or forbid all export and import; and it was none of his business to pry behind the papers that covered transactions essential to his people. The imports to Great Britain of naval stores, mainly from the Baltic, more than doubled from 1808 to 1809, and were even greater the following year. 409 Wool from Spain and silk from Italy experienced a similar rise. Even West India produce, so vigorously excluded from the Continent, shared the general advance; and there was a great, though feverish and unsound, hope of returning prosperity. It was evident that Napoleon's measures were meeting only partial success, and men were willing to believe that their failure lay in the nature of things,—in the impossibility of his attempt. They had yet to learn that persecution fails only when it is not, or cannot be, thorough and unrelenting.

Among the multiplied impediments to intercourse between nations, due first of all to the narrow ideas of commercial policy prevalent at that epoch, increased by the state of open maritime war or hostile exclusion existing between Great Britain and most of the continental countries, and further complicated by the continental blockade of Napoleon and the retaliatory orders of the British government, there arose an obscure but extensive usage of "licenses;" which served, though but partially, and in a wholly arbitrary manner, to remove some of the difficulties that prevented the exchange of commodities. A license, from its name, implies a prohibition which is intended to be removed in the particular case; and the license practice of the Napoleonic wars was for the most part not so much a system, as an aggregation of individual permissions to carry on a traffic forbidden by the existing laws of the authority granting them. The licenses were issued both by the British government and by Napoleon; and they were addressed, according to the character of the sway borne by one party or the other, either to the police of the seas, the armed cruisers, or to the customs authorities of the continental ports. It was generally admitted in Great Britain that the Board of Trade was actuated only by upright motives in its action, though the practice was vigorously attacked on many grounds,—chiefly in order to impugn the Orders in Council to which alone their origin was attributed; but in France the taint of court corruption, or favoritism, in the issue of licenses was clearly asserted. 410

The "License System," in the peculiar and extensive form to which the phrase was commonly applied, was adopted by the British government in 1808, 411 immediately after the Orders in Council and the alliance of Russia with Napoleon. Licenses did not then first begin to be issued, nor were they then for the first time necessary; 412 but then began the development which carried their numbers from two thousand six hundred and six in 1807, to over fifteen thousand in 1809 and over eighteen thousand in 1810. After the last year there was a rapid falling off, due, not to a change of system, but to the bitter experience that the license, which protected against a British cruiser, did not save the ship and cargo upon arrival in a port under Napoleon's control, when he had at last devoted his indomitable energy to the thorough enforcement of his decrees. During the years in which the practice flourished, it was principally to the Baltic ports that the licensed vessels went, though they also made their way to those of Holland, France, Spain, and other countries on the Continent. The trade to the British East and West Indies was confined to British vessels, as in time of profound peace.

The true origin of the later license trade is to be found in that supremacy and omnipresence of the British navy, which made it impossible for vessels under an enemy's flag to keep the sea. In order to employ their vessels, hostile owners transferred them to a neutral ownership, ordinarily by a fraudulent process which received the name of "neutralization." A neutralized ship remained the property of the hostile merchant; but, for a stipulated price, a neutral firm, who made this their regular business, gave their name as the owners and obtained from the authorities of the neutral country all the requisite papers and attestations by which the British cruisers, on searching, might be deceived. As a regular systematic business, fraudulent from beginning to end, the practice first arose during the war of the American Revolution, in 1780, when Holland became a party to the war, having a large mercantile tonnage with very inadequate means of protecting it. At that time a firm established itself in Embden, on the Prussian side of the Ems, which divides Prussia from Holland, and within the two years that remained of the war "neutralized," under Prussian flags, a hundred thousand tons of foreign shipping, besides cargoes to an immense value for those days. In the wars of Napoleon it was the fate of Holland to be again dragged in the wake of France, and the same practice of neutralization, supported by false oaths and false papers, again sprang up and flourished extensively in the Prussian province of East Friesland,—Prussia carefully maintaining her neutrality from 1795 to the unfortunate Jena campaign of 1806.