[462] See Metternich's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 477.
[463] Corr. de Nap., vol. xxi. p. 497 (Feb. 28, 1811).
[464] Ibid., p. 275.
[465] Ibid., p. 296.
[466] These contentions of Napoleon were for the most part perfectly correct. Some interesting facts, bearing upon the true character of the so-called neutral trade in the Baltic, may be gathered from Ross's Life of Saumarez, vol. ii. chaps. ix.-xiii. See also representations made by a number of American ship-captains, Am. State Papers, vol. iii. pp. 329-333. On the other hand, the scrupulously upright John Quincy Adams, U. S. minister to Russia, affirmed that he positively knew some of the American ships to be direct from the United States. The facts, however, only show the dependence of the world at that time upon the Sea Power of Great Britain, which made Napoleon's Continental System impossible; yet, on the other hand, it was his only means of reaching his enemy. If he advanced, he was ruined; if he receded, he failed.
[467] During one year, 1809, this fleet captured 430 vessels, averaging sixty tons each, of which 340 were Danes. Among these were between thirty and forty armed cutters and schooners, of which Denmark had to employ a great many to supply Norway with grain. The remaining ninety vessels were Russian. (Naval Chronicle, vol. xxii. p. 517.)
[468] "Once more I must tell you," wrote a Swedish statesman to Saumarez, "that you were the first cause that Russia dared to make war against France. Had you fired one shot when we declared war against England, all had been ended and Europe would have been enslaved." (Ross's Saumarez, vol. ii. p. 294.)
[469] Thiers, Cons. et Emp., Book xlii. p. 383.
[470] Compare Metternich's argument with the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, October, 1807. (Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 161.)
[471] Annual Register, 1792; State Papers, p. 355.