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

The emperor went further. Deciding, after long consideration, that fifty per cent on the London prices represented the profits of smugglers of colonial goods, he determined to allow the introduction of the latter upon payment of duty to that extent. Characteristically unwilling to appear to take a step backward, he extended this permission only to produce not coming from British colonies; but it was understood, and officially intimated to the customs authorities, that the inquiry should not be rigorous. In this subterfuge, says M. Thiers, consisted the whole combination. 432 Having thus constituted a lawful variety of colonial products in the empire and in the subject countries, the emperor felt at liberty to execute one of those vast confiscations, which contributed so materially to his military chest. All collections of these goods existing within his reach were to be seized at the same time, and, if they had not been declared, should be condemned; if they had, should pay half their value, in money or in kind. "Thus it was hoped to seize everywhere at the same time, and to take for the treasury of Napoleon, or for that of his allies, the half in case of declaration, the whole in case of dissimulation. It can be conceived what terror would be caused to the numerous accomplices of British commerce." 433 This measure was established by a decree of August 5, 1810, and accepted by all the continental states, except Russia. The latter refused to go beyond her obligations by the treaty of Tilsit, and took the occasion to express her uneasiness at seeing the French troops gradually extending along the northern seas, and even as close to her own borders as Dantzic. The impossibility of cordial co-operation in the immense sacrifices demanded by the Continental System was clearly shown by this refusal; but by no less vigorous means could Great Britain be reached, and Napoleon could not recede. The decree was extended outside the boundaries of the empire, to any depot of colonial goods within four days' march of the frontiers, in Switzerland, in Germany, in Prussia, in the Hanse towns. Large sums of money were realized, and the government became a dealer in groceries when the payments were made in kind. The pressure of the French troops extended everywhere, and French flotillas cruised along the coasts of the North Sea, whether within the limits of the empire or not, in the mouths and along the course of the great rivers, to seal them more completely.

The decree of August 5 was carried out by the armed hand. "Wherever my troops are," wrote Napoleon to Prussia, "I suffer no English smuggling." On this ground French authorities executed the mandate in the Prussian port of Stettin, which was in the military occupation only of his troops. "All the ports of this once potent kingdom," says a contemporary magazine, "are filled with French soldiers, who seize and burn every article which can possibly have passed through British hands. Prussia is described as in a deplorable state, almost disorganized and no employment for industry." 434 Similar action was taken in the Hanse towns with no other justification. The king of Westphalia was ordered to withdraw his army from the northern part of the kingdom, that French soldiers might enter for the same purpose. In Switzerland the native authorities were permitted to act, but a French customs officer supervised. On the 18th of August the emperor directed the military occupation of the territory of Lubeck, Lauenburg, Hamburg, and all the west bank of the Elbe, for a length of fifty miles from its mouth; thence the line extended, at about the same distance from the sea, to Bremen, and thence to the frontiers of Holland, taking in the little states of Arenberg and Oldenburg. This military occupation was but the precursor of the annexation of these countries a few months later, which led to the first overt act of displeasure on the part of the czar. In justification of the step, one of a series which alienated Alexander and led up to the Russian war, was alleged the purpose of sustaining the continental blockade as the only means of destroying Great Britain. "General Morand," so read the orders, "is charged to take all necessary measures for the prevention of smuggling. For this purpose he will establish a first line of troops from Holstein to East-Frisia, and a second line in rear of the first." 435

On the 6th of October the viceroy of Italy was directed to occupy with Italian troops all the Italian cantons of Switzerland, and to sequestrate at once all colonial or other contraband merchandise. The order was accompanied with Napoleon's usual formula: "This ought to bring in several millions." Eugene was to explain that this was only a step similar to the occupation of northern Germany, that it did not invade the neutrality of Switzerland; and he was to be particularly careful that the emperor's hand did not appear. "That there should be a quarrel between you and Switzerland will do no harm." 436 On the 19th of October Prussia was notified that, if she did not efficiently preclude the passage of British and colonial merchandise through her states, the French army would enter them; and the French minister was directed to leave Berlin if satisfaction was not given. 437

Coincidently with these principal measures, the correspondence of Napoleon teems with orders, complaints, remonstrances, reprimands, queries, all showing how bent his mind was on the one purpose. Having turned over the command of the army in Portugal, directed against the British, to his ablest marshal, Masséna, he was concentrating his own energies on the blockade. At the same time, he occupied himself with stringent measures for protecting the industries of France in the European market. No man ever held more thoroughly than the emperor that element of the theory of protection, that the government can manage the business of the people better than themselves. His kingdom of Italy should not use Swiss nor German cottons; such goods must come only from France. 438 Italian raw silks shall go nowhere but to France, 439 and then only to Lyon. The whole export trade is in his hands by a system of licenses, 440 apparently borrowed from Great Britain, and which at this time he greatly extended. On the 25th of July an order was given that no ship could clear from a port of the empire for abroad without a license, signed by the emperor himself. On September 15 another decree was issued, 441 allowing licensed vessels to sail from Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck for French ports. The license was to cost twelve dollars per ton, and was good only for the return voyage; but the vessel upon arriving in France was exempt from all question as to search by British cruisers, and might even land all her cargo in a British port,—in other words, she was excepted from the Berlin and Milan decrees. She could not, however, enter France with any British goods. Returning, she was to load with wines or other French produce, except grain or flour. Under the rival license systems new and curious methods of evasion grew up. Compelled to take French articles which were not wanted in Great Britain, as well as those that were, the former were put on board of so inferior a quality that they could be thrown into the sea without loss. At either end smuggling boats met the licensed vessel before entering port, and took from her forbidden articles. Ships of either nation, with foreign flag, and simulated papers, were to be seen in each other's ports. 442 The British, as a commercial people, were naturally willing to give a larger extension to this evasive trade; but the emperor would not grant anything that he thought could help his enemy, even though it benefited his own people. He believed, and rightly, that Great Britain was receiving more harm than France; he did not realize that, from her immense wealth and commercial aptitudes, she could endure the process longer.

The decree of August 5 admitted colonial goods, but excluded British manufactures. On the 19th of October was issued another edict, directing that all such manufactured goods, wherever found in the emperor's dominions, or even in countries in the mere military occupation of his troops, should be publicly burned. This was remorselessly done. "Persons who at this epoch were living in the interior of France can form no idea of the desolation which so savage a measure spread through countries accustomed to live by commerce. What a spectacle offered to peoples impoverished and lacking everything, to see the burning of articles the distribution of which would have been an alleviation to their sufferings!… What a means of attacking conquered peoples, to irritate their privations by the destruction of a number of articles of the first necessity!" 443 "The tampering with the mails," says Savary, the Minister of Police, "caused me to make some very sad reflections, and forced me to admit that we were not advancing toward tranquillity; and that, if the party against us were not yet formed, at least all sentiments were agreed, and that a single reverse would be enough to ruin us.... The more we disturbed the relations of Europe with England, the more, on all sides, men sought to draw together; and we remained with the odious epithets given to us by all those whom our measures thwarted." 444 "There was already an understanding from one end of Europe to the other; every cabinet earnestly wished the overthrow of Napoleon, as the people also wished, with at least equal ardor, a state of things less stifling for their industry and trade. Despite the terror inspired by Napoleon's name, there was, side by side with that terror, that damnable Continental System which settled the question; it was necessary either to fight or to succumb. The people of the North were under an imperious necessity to break that yoke of lead, which made the custom house the prime agent of the governments of Europe." 445

Russia had refused to accede to any steps beyond her engagements of Tilsit; but nowhere was discontent more profound, nowhere opposition more to be dreaded. While Napoleon was indisputably leading Great Britain into greater and greater embarrassment, by the depreciation of her manufactures and by the accumulations of unsalable sugars and coffees in her warehouses, he was also ruining the agriculture of Russia and the revenues of her nobles. Despite the relief afforded by the great licensed fleets, the Tilsit agreements so embarrassed trade, that hemp, which in 1802 was worth £32 the ton in London, had reached, in 1809, £118; 446 and other products of the North rose in the same proportion. At the same time sixty thousand tons of coffee lay in the London warehouses, unsalable at sixpence the pound, while the price on the Continent was from four to five shillings, and in places even seven shillings. 447 No better proof of the efficacious co-working of Napoleon's system and of the British Orders can be offered; but the question was one of endurance. Which could stand such a strain longer? In Russia matters were fast approaching a climax. The czar felt the ground trembling under his feet; 448 and, while he renewed his protestations of fidelity to Tilsit and Erfurt, he had to see Napoleon, by his licenses, evading the restrictions which he at the same time was pressing his ally to enforce more rigorously. In vain was the explanation offered that these licenses were but in furtherance of the restrictive system; that France was unloading her surplus products upon England, while refusing to receive aught but specie in return; and that in consequence the exchange was going more and more against Great Britain. The czar knew better; and the repeated and urgent letters of the emperor, becoming, as was the wont of Napoleon's requests, rather peremptory than entreating, to seize and confiscate all neutral ships entering Russian ports, fell on deaf ears. Alexander feared war; but he remembered his father's fate, and feared assassination more.

On the 10th of December, 1810, the emperor sent a message to the Senate announcing that he had annexed to the empire the Hanse towns, together with the region on the North Sea intervening between them and Holland, which had been as yet only in military occupation. In the same paper he expressed his intention of making a canal from the Elbe to Lubeck, by which the empire should be brought into direct water communication with the Baltic. This assurance was not calculated to ease the anxiety of the czar as to the eastward progress of France; but the measure was accompanied by a circumstance of personal affront, peculiarly dangerous to an alliance which depended chiefly upon the personal relations of two absolute sovereigns. The Grand Duke of Oldenburg, one of the countries thus unceremoniously annexed, was uncle to the czar; and though Napoleon proposed to indemnify him for the material loss, by territory taken in the interior of Germany, Alexander would not accept such satisfaction nor name any compensation that he would think adequate. He did not threaten war, but he refused to surrender his grievance, and reserved his right to retaliate an injury.

Meantime very serious results were developing, both in Great Britain and France, from the strained and abnormal conditions of commerce and the shocks caused by Napoleon's sudden and tremendous blows at credit, by his wide-spread confiscations, and by the Baltic seizures. The triple array of French troops that lined the shores of the Continent, re-enforced by the belt of British cruisers girding the coasts from the Ems to Bayonne, and from the Pyrenees to Orbitello, created a barrier which neither mercantile ingenuity nor popular want could longer evade to a degree that afforded any real measure of relief. The stolid, though as yet peaceable, measures of resistance taken by the United States had added seriously to the embarrassments of Great Britain, while rather furthering the policy of Napoleon, however contrary this was to the interests of France. During the years 1808 and 1809, the continuance of the embargo and of the non-intercourse acts, closing the North American market, coincided with the opening of the South American; and a great rush was made by the British mercantile community for the latter, although it was not, by the number of the inhabitants, nor by their wealth, nor by their habits of life, at all able to take the place of the consumers lost in Europe and North America. The goods sent out in great quantities were injudiciously chosen, as well as far in excess of the possible requirements; so they remained unsold, and for the most part uncared for and unhoused, on the beach in South American ports. The judgment of men seemed to become unhinged amid the gloom and perplexity of the time, and the frantic desire of each to save himself increased the confusion. Mere movement, however aimless or dangerous, is less intolerable than passive waiting.

The years 1809 and 1810 were consequently marked by an extensive movement in trade, which carried with it an appearance of prosperity in great part delusive. Immense imports were made from the Baltic, and from Italy, at the moment that Napoleon's coils were tightening around them; large shipments also to the North, to South America, and to the West Indies. In the United States only was there a transient period of solid transactions; for in May, 1810, the Non-Intercourse Act expired by its own limitations. A proviso, however, was immediately enacted that if, before the 3d of March, 1811, either Great Britain or France should recall their decrees so far as they affected the United States, the Act should, within three months of the revocation, revive against the power that maintained its edicts. Napoleon contrived to satisfy President Madison that his Berlin and Milan decrees were so recalled on the first of November; but Great Britain refused to consider the terms of the withdrawal satisfactory, as in truth they were not. The Order in Council of April 26, 1809, remained in force; and non-intercourse between the United States and Great Britain again obtained in February, 1811, and continued to the outbreak of the war in 1812.

Toward the end of 1810 the results of the various causes of trouble began to be heavily felt. Very scant returns coming from South America, the shippers were unable to discharge their debts to the manufacturers; and the embarrassments of the latter were felt by their workmen. From the West Indies the returns came in tropical produce, which could be realized only on the Continent, long since partly and now effectually closed. A succession of bad seasons had necessitated the importation of large quantities of grain from Holland and France, especially in 1809, when an abundant harvest there, coinciding with a very bad crop in England, induced Napoleon to enter upon his license system, and to authorize an export which in three years drained £10,000,000 in specie from the enemy. The freights to the licensed carriers, mostly neutrals or hostile, at least in name, were also paid in specie, which was thus taken out of the country; and there was a further drain of gold for the maintenance of the fleets in distant parts of the world and for the war in Spain, which now took the place of the former subsidies to allies as a consumer of British treasure. Thus arose a scarcity of specie. In November, 1810, the bankruptcies were two hundred and seventy-three, against one hundred and thirty of the same month a year before. Stoppages and compositions equalled in number half the traders of the kingdom. "The general failures have wonderfully affected manufactures, and want of confidence prevails between manufacturer and merchant." A month later "bankruptcies continue to increase, and confidence is nearly at an end. Neither gold nor silver is often to be seen. The trade of the manufacturing towns is at stand; and houses fail, not every day, but every hour. In the great sea-ports, the king's stores are full of all kinds of colonial produce which find no sale. Despondency is increased by the accounts from the Continent, which represent all the sea-ports and internal depots of trade to be full of French soldiers, who seize and burn every article which can possibly have passed through British hands." As the shadows darkened, murmurs grew louder and louder against the once popular 449 Orders in Council, to which all the evil was now attributed. The press changed its tone upon them, and a gradual agitation for their repeal grew up around the Opposition leaders; who, from the moment they lost power, had never ceased to inveigh against the retaliatory system framed by the ministry.

But while disaster was thus thickening about Great Britain, the case of France was worse. It was quite true, as the emperor said, that the people could live without sugar and coffee, and that necessity would in time find ways to produce many articles the import of which was denied her; but such warped applications of her industry and ingenuity, even when finally realized, could neither replace the loss of her natural channels of effort nor for any length of time cope with a nation, which, however momentarily shaken by unprecedented conditions, yet kept power continually to renew her strength by contact, through the sea, with new sources. That Great Britain would do this, her traditions and the habits of her people were the pledge; and the credit of the government bore witness to it through all. In the early part of 1811 a serious commercial crisis occurred in France, causing great anxiety to Napoleon. It was his particular wish to keep this corner-stone of the empire prosperous and contented under the immense demands made upon it for men, and the bitter sufferings entailed by the conscription. But prosperity was hard to secure with all the sea outlets of her manufactures and agriculture closed, with only a continental market, and that impoverished by the universal cessation of trade and further enfeebled by the exhausting demands made upon the peoples to support the armies quartered upon them. The British blockade of the French, Dutch, and Italian coasts forbade absolutely, except to the limited license trade, the water carriage of raw materials essential to manufactures, and prevented the export of French luxuries. "The state of France as it fell under my observation in 1807," wrote an American traveller, "exhibited a very different perspective" from that of Great Britain. "The effects of the loss of external trade were everywhere visible,—in the commercial cities half-deserted, and reduced to a state of inaction and gloom truly deplorable; in the inland towns, in which the populace is eminently wretched, and where I saw not one indication of improvement, but on the contrary numbers of edifices falling to ruin; on the high roads, where the infrequency of vehicles and travellers denoted but too strongly the decrease of internal consumption, and the languor of internal trade; and among the inhabitants of the country, particularly of the South, whose misery is extreme, in consequence of the exorbitant taxes, and of the want of outlet for their surplus produce. In 1807 the number of mendicants in the inland towns was almost incredible.... The fields were principally cultivated by women." 450

All the genius of Napoleon could not create demands when there was not means to gratify them, and the exquisite products of French taste and skill labored under the same disadvantage as coffee and sugar, than which they were even less necessary; men could dispense with them. Production, stimulated by an exaggerated protection, became for a time excessive and then ceased; even the exclusion of British manufactures and the frequent burnings could not secure the continental market to articles, the raw materials for which were made so dear by the sea blockade, or by the long land carriage. Levant cotton made its weary way on horse and mule back, from Turkey, through Illyria, to Trieste, and thence was duly forwarded to France; 451 but even so, when made into stuffs, found itself in competition with British cottons which were landed in Salonica, conveyed on horses and mules through Servia and Hungary into Vienna, and thence distributed over Germany. 452 In the same manner was British colonial produce introduced. Despite all Napoleon's efforts, smuggling continued to compete with and undersell the fair trader, and his own licenses were used to evade his own decrees. 453 Many firms in Holland went out of business altogether, the factories of Lyon closed their doors, and several Paris houses were in distress; although, like the British warehouses, their stores were crowded with goods for which they could find no purchasers. Banks could not recover their advances, internal commerce fell into confusion, and general disaster followed.

At the same time there was in France, as in Great Britain, much suffering from bad harvests, and this was aggravated for the former by the interruption of the coasting trade by the British cruisers, and by the indifferent character of the inland roads, which, except when they served the military plans of the emperor, were neglected from the straitened state of the finances. The government came to the rescue with various measures of relief, necessarily partial and arbitrary; designed rather to stave off immediate trouble than to afford a radical cure for existing difficulties. Yet serious remedies were needed; for the growing distress of the Continent must continue to react upon France, which found therein its only customers. In Holland almost all the former sources of wealth had one by one been cut off; and even money-lending, which survived the others, became a losing business from the wide-spread ruin in Europe. 454 In Russia the ruble had fallen to one third of the value it had before the institution of the Continental System; although the czar had refused to impose upon his people and their commerce the decrees of August 5 and October 19, which Napoleon had forced upon other states. With growing poverty in Europe, the empire must grow poorer, and in proportion to its loss of wealth must be the diminution of the revenue. Yet already the revenue was insufficient to the wants of the state, despite all the extraordinary resources which had been called up during the past year, and which could not again be expected. It was not to be hoped that many American ships would again place themselves within reach of the emperor's confiscations. The enormous seizures of colonial produce, made by surprise in the previous August, could not, to any similar extent, be repeated. The duty of fifty per cent, levied throughout the states occupied by his troops, on the coffee and sugar which was declared by the owners, had fallen upon accumulations made during the years of lax blockade and had brought in large sums; but it now served only as an inducement to smuggling. Great ingenuity had been shown in devising extraordinary means for extracting money from the subject peoples, but every year saw these supplies diminishing. Like slavery, like bad farming, Napoleon's administration, and especially his army, required continually new soil455 and did little to renew or develop the powers which it taxed; beneficent plans were formed, multitudinous orders issued, but they received rare fulfilment except when they conduced to the military efficiency of the state.