FOOTNOTES:
[264] France asserted, and America seems to have admitted that the first departure from the Law of Nations was this Act of Mr. Fox’s Administration, and that this Act led to the Berlin Decree; but this is a pretence (see ‘Key to Orders in Council,’ p. 1). It is worth while to give briefly here the dates and order of these different decrees, etc. (1.) Mr. Fox’s Order for blockade of French coast, April 8, 1806. (2.) Berlin Decree, Nov. 10, 1806 (recapitulated, Nov. 24, 1806). (3.) Lord Grey’s Order in Council, Jan. 7, 1807. (4.) Orders in Council of Nov. 11, 1807, by the Portland administration. (5.) Milan Decree, Dec. 17, 1807. (6.) Bayonne Decree, April 17, 1808. (7.) Rambouillet Decree, March 23, 1810. (8.) Fontainebleau Decree, March 23, 1810. The Bayonne and Rambouillet Decrees were those most directly issued against the Americans.
[265] We cannot read with patience such denouncements of barbarism, and such professions of liberty and justice from one who about this period ordered a poor bookseller of Nuremburg, by name of Palm, to be arbitrarily arrested, and brought before a military tribunal at Bremen, where he was condemned to be unceremoniously shot, because he had published and distributed a pamphlet, which questioned the “justice” of Napoleon’s acts, as the conqueror of Germany. If ever there was a martyr in the cause of “liberty” it was this poor man, whose most unjustifiable execution in August 1806, was regarded with horror throughout Europe.
[266] Alison, vol. xi., p. 105, in a note, mentions a striking instance of how the Berlin decree was opposed even to Napoleon’s own interests. Shortly after its issue there arrived at Hamburg an urgent order for the immediate delivery of a very large amount of clothing for his army; but the resources of the Hanse Towns were so totally unable to provide within the specified time the requisite supply, that Bourrienne, the French diplomatic agent, after trying in vain every other expedient, was obliged to contract for it with English houses. Thus while the Emperor was boasting that by the continental system he had excluded British goods from the continent, 50,000 to 60,000 of his half-naked soldiers were, in the depth of winter, clothed by the manufacturers of Halifax, Leeds, and other English towns.
[267] M. Thiers’ ‘Consulat et l’Empire,’ vii. 222.
[268] This is Mr. Fox’s Order of April 8, 1806.
[269] This is Lord Grey’s Order. The Morning Chronicle of Jan. 4, 1808, in commenting on the above order, remarks that Lord Grey “distinctly stated to the United States of America that their acquiescence in a code which violated the rights of independent States would compel this country to take steps for its own protection.... The Decree is certainly directed against the Americans—it is a menace to her; ... she must choose her party.”
[270] By the Portland Administration, of which Canning and Perceval were members: two orders would seem to have been issued on the same day. Key to ‘Orders,’ p. 5.
[271] These Orders in Council are dispersed through a multitude of works. In 1808 they were laid before Parliament, and will be found in extenso in vol. x. ‘Parl. Papers’ of that year.
[272] Such was the effect in England of these proclamations, that in the months of September and October 1807, when these or similar orders were anticipated, no fewer than sixty-five applications were made to the Commissioners of Customs at the port of London for permission to re-land cargoes, already shipped in the Thames for exportation to the continent of Europe, the impression being that goods arriving there in English vessels would be confiscated (‘Parl. Papers,’ vol. x., 1808, p. 11).
[273] The Orders in Council were fully examined by Mr. Alex. Baring in his pamphlet. Mr. Baring’s sympathies were strongly American, but, on the whole, fair to this country (see ‘Enquiry into Causes and Consequences of the Orders in Council,’ Lond. 8, 1808).
[274] Alison, ch. xlii. (1806).
[275] Vide Martin’s ‘Law of Nations,’ Sup. 5, 437, 435, and ‘Annual Register,’ 1806, p. 677, for the Order in Council detaining Prussian ships. In discussing “the rights of war as to neutrals,” Wheaton remarks that “during the wars of the French Revolution the United States, being neutral, admitted that the immunity of their flag did not extend to cover enemy’s property, as a principle founded on the customary law and established usage of nations, though they sought every opportunity of substituting for it the opposite maxim of free ships, free goods, by conventional arrangements with such nations as were disposed to adopt that modification of the universal law” (vol. ii. pp. 176, 177).
[276] There is a further Decree of March 23, 1810, known as the ‘Rambouillet Decree’ on this subject (see ‘Key to Orders in Council,’ No. 13).
[277] Moniteur, 18th Nov., 1810. At Hamburg, in 1811, under the bloody government of Davoust, an unhappy father was shot for having introduced into his house a small sugar-loaf, of which his family stood in need: yet at that very moment Napoleon was probably signing a licence for the importation of a million of such loaves. Smuggling on a small scale was punished with death; but the government carried it on upon the greatest scale. The same regulations filled the prisons with victims and the imperial coffers with revenue. Note by Alison, vol. xi. p. 173, from Bourrienne, vol. vii. p. 233.
[278] The freight on wheat from the Baltic rose to 50s. per quarter. The price of linseed advanced from 43s. to 150s. Hemp rose in price from 58l. to 108l. per ton; flax from 58l. per ton in 1807, to 118l. per ton in the following year. Memel timber, which, during 1806 and 1807, had varied from the extremes of 73s. to 170s. per load, advanced to 340s. per load; while deals rose in a similar proportion. Russian tallow rose from 53s. to 112s. per cwt. Freights on all these articles ranged exceedingly high. For instance, timber was charged at 10l. per load; tallow at 20l. and hemp at 30l. per ton; in fact, at ten to twenty times greater than the current rates of the present period (Tooke’s ‘History of Prices,’ vol. i. pp. 309-343).
[279] A copy of these warrants will be found in ‘Parl. Papers,’ 1808, vol. xi. p. 117. They were signed by the Lords of the Treasury.
[280] Many remarkable cases occurred of goods being sent by a circuitous route. On one occasion two parcels of silk were despatched from Bergamo, in Italy, to England at the same time. One was sent by the way of Smyrna, and the other by the way of Archangel. The former was a twelvemonth, and the latter two years on its passage. The expenses attending the importation of silk which was brought by these and similar routes through the north of Europe were enormous. Some silk likewise came through France, and the charges of conveyance from Italy to Havre, and duty of transit, amounted to nearly 100l. per bale of 240 lbs. net weight, exclusive of freight and insurance from Havre hither.
[281] For instance, the charge of freight and French licence on a vessel of very little more than fifty tons burthen have been known to amount to 50,000l. for the voyage, merely from London to Calais and back. In another instance a vessel, the whole cost of which, including the outfit, did not exceed 4,000l., earned a gross freight of 80,000l. on a voyage from Bordeaux to London and back (see Tooke’s ‘History of Prices,’ vol. i. p. 310).
[282] As an instance in our own experience of the effect of blockades in more recent times, it may be mentioned that England obtained, during the whole of the late war with Russia, her supplies of hemp, tallow, and other Russian produce in almost as great abundance from that country as she did during peace, but at greatly enhanced prices to the British consumer. These articles, instead of being shipped in the ordinary course of commerce direct from the Baltic ports, were carried across the frontiers into Germany, or Belgium, or France, and by railway rapidly found their way to the ports of neutral countries, and thence were exported to England, so that the modern means of transit would seem not only to render in a great measure nugatory the effect of blockades, but to greatly enhance the price of all articles to the nation which establishes them. Thus, while England was very heavily taxed to maintain an effective blockade of the Russian ports, her people paid at least one hundred per cent. more for numerous articles produced in that country, articles, too, be it remembered, necessary for their existence. Would it not be advisable for English statesmen to consider if, in the interests of this country, the right of blockade, as well as the capture of private property at sea, could not now be erased from the ancient laws of nations?
[283] The amount received in 1807 was 12,609l. 12s.
[284] ‘Parl. Papers,’ 27, 1808, vol. x. p. 359.
[285] Vide ‘Proceedings in the Privy Council on Licences to Trade and Navigate,’ vol. x. p. 1808.
[286] Vide Speeches of Mr. Brougham and Mr. Canning (‘Parl. Debates,’ vol. xxi. p. 1108, et seq.).
[287] Mr. Brougham said in the House of Commons that he had himself seen the forged signature of Napoleon (Nap).
[288] Mr. Brougham’s speech on the Licence Trade (‘Parl. Debates,’ vol. xxi. p. 1114).