[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).
CHAPTER IX.
Effect of the Orders in Council on American trade, A.D. 1810—Complaints of the Americans against England—Policy of Napoleon towards neutrals—Non-intercourse Act—Secret terms with America—Partiality of the United States towards France—Contentions at home respecting the Orders in Council—Declaration of war with America—Motives of the Americans—England revokes her Orders in Council—Condemnation of the conduct of the United States—Impressment of American seamen—Fraudulent certificates—Incidents of the system—War with America—Necessity of relaxing the Navigation Laws during war—High duties on cotton—Great European Alliance—Napoleon returns to Paris—Germans advance to the Rhine—Treaty of Chaumont—The Allies enter Paris—End of the war by the Treaty of Paris, 1814—Napoleon’s escape from Elba—His landing in France and advance on Paris—British troops despatched to Belgium—Subsidies to European powers—Fouché—Last campaign of Napoleon and defeat at Waterloo—Reflections.
Effect of the Orders in Council on American trade, A.D. 1810.
Complaints of the Americans against England.
Although the Orders in Council asserted the purpose which England had in view at the time they were issued, these commercial retaliatory measures can only be justified on the ground of extreme necessity. Desperate measures on the part of the enemy were then met by measures as desperate on the part of Great Britain. She would, if she had dared, been glad to have dispensed with them, for though they thwarted the designs of Napoleon and impoverished his people, they injured her own commercial pursuits; while their effect on her relations with the United States of America was of the most irritating and unpleasant character. When they came into full force, the English export trade with that country, previously valued at twelve millions sterling per annum, ostensibly fell to five and a quarter millions, although the total aggregate exports experienced no such corresponding diminution, thereby proving that the Americans had absorbed, as the greatest maritime neutrals, the largest share of the carrying trade. But when the English Orders in Council, issued in consequence of Napoleon’s decrees, struck a blow at this trade, the Americans, seeing so lucrative a branch of their commerce withdrawn from their hands, set up an indignant appeal, and, though tamely acquiescing in Napoleon’s still harsher measures, declaimed furiously against the English government, when it exhibited a resolute determination to prevent the carrying trade of the world being taken from English shipowners.
The most important of the British Orders in Council, as we have seen, bore date 11th November, 1807, the Milan Decree following on the 17th of December of the same year; but the Americans, having been apprised of the intentions of the English government, adopted precautionary measures by imposing a general embargo from and after the 22nd of December, 1807.[289] Nothing can prove more conclusively how unpopular this step was among the shipowners of the United States than the fact that every vessel in the foreign trade which heard the intelligence kept out of their ports, preferring to run the risk of capture rather than lose their share of the enormous profits they were making in their neutral bottoms, by a clandestine trade with France and England. The American government clearly foresaw that the extreme measures adopted by both belligerents would annihilate their foreign carrying trade, and restore to England that power and its accompanying commercial advantages, which her maritime superiority had already conferred on her in the great contest in which she was engaged.
Policy of Napoleon towards neutrals.
Non-intercourse Act.