The truth of Mr. Baring’s recommendations soon became too apparent. Although the Americans when they declared war had only four frigates fit for service, the Constitution not being then finished, they launched such a fleet of privateers that English merchant vessels were captured in large numbers; but it was only when two of their frigates were taken that the English were aroused to the necessity of meeting with greater force their new rivals on the ocean. It ought, however, to be remembered that in the well-known cases of the capture of the Guerriere, the Macedonian, and the Java, by the Constitution and the United States respectively, the odds were largely on the side of the Americans, especially in the weight of their armaments and size of their vessels. Moreover the American crews were generally one-third English, and, however much we may regret to have to admit the fact, certain it is that, on board the United States, there were men who had actually served under Lord Nelson on board the Victory at Trafalgar[302]. But it was not until the Shannon took the Chesapeake, in the presence, as is related, of a crowd of yachts which had come out from Boston to see the English frigate captured, that the British regained the supremacy they had so long held upon the ocean.[303]
During this unfortunate war many difficulties arose with respect of the importation of American cotton, as that necessary article of commerce, in spite of the English navigation laws, still in some mode found its way to her ports in neutral bottoms. Consequently there arose a complication, in which the cotton-spinners stood in direct antagonism with the interests of the shipowners. By the laws of war trade could not be carried on with America except by royal licence; the Act of the 43 George III., c. 153, only giving power to legalise importations. The general navigation laws of England prohibited importation except in their own ships, or in the ships of the places where the commodities imported grew. The Act of George III., therefore, conflicted with that of Charles II., and the shipowners viewed any relaxation of the provisions of the old navigation laws with the deepest alarm.
Necessity of relaxing the Navigation Laws during war.
Thus, whenever a war with a maritime power supervened, the navigation laws were relaxed in favour of some paramount interests, such as, in the present case, that of the cotton-spinners, whose demands for raw cotton required to be supplied. Even in a state of war every nation must of necessity provide as far as possible for the supply and sale of those raw materials of produce, the manipulation of which tends in a great degree to employ the industry and promote the general prosperity of large classes of the community. England had been thus compelled to sacrifice, or evade by licences or otherwise, her Orders in Council, although every statesman who could exercise a disinterested judgment had a full conviction of their expediency under the circumstances in which she was then placed. In like manner the United States, a few years previously, had been compelled to sacrifice their system of embargoes, which was a favourite policy of the actual dominant party in America; and the Czar, in his incipient efforts, had been incited to resist Napoleon’s dictation as to what merchant vessels he should or should not admit into his ports, although this decision raised the question of the existence of national independence.
High duties on cotton.
But with all these obvious principles patent to every legislator in both Houses of Parliament, it is the fact that a duty of TWOPENCE per pound was levied on the importation of COTTON WOOL if imported in British ships, and THREEPENCE per pound if imported in ships not British built. Such were the strange anomalies of protection and such the difficulties which all similar legislative measures must ever create in the necessary commercial intercourse between nations. England has, however, now happily corrected all this fallacious legislation, and consequently a population of wealth and national power has been created in the very centre of the kingdom unsurpassed for intelligence in any previously existing manufacturing community. The shipowners of the kingdom, instead of stopping up and checking the fountain of prosperity at its source, now suffer it to flow in its natural channels, and they find that their own interests, instead of being impaired by the change, have kept pace with the general prosperity enjoyed by other classes.
Great European Alliance.
Turning now to the great wars which still raged in Europe, we may, by way of continuity, remind our readers that the consent of the King of Prussia having been reluctantly obtained, for he still inclined to Napoleon, the treaty of Kalitsch was signed on the 1st of March, 1813.[304] This treaty constituted the foundation of that grand Alliance which soon after accomplished the overthrow of Napoleon, and the deliverance of the European continent. The people of Prussia, to a man, had risen to arms to deliver their fatherland from the grasp of their French oppressor, and the king, though dreading the ire of Napoleon, who could easily have purchased his neutrality at the time, felt conscious that it was now a question of life and death for him, and no longer hesitated. The treaty, therefore, was signed, and Russia agreed never to lay down her arms until Prussia was reconstituted as she stood anterior to 1806. A proclamation was issued to all the German princes, announcing that the allies had no other object in view but to rescue Germany from the domination of France. Four days afterwards the Russian general proclaimed the dissolution of the Confederation of the Rhine, and the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin gave the first example of an adhesion to the new Alliance.
Napoleon returns to Paris.
Napoleon, with Caulaincourt in the same vehicle, had reached Paris before the intelligence of his retreat from Moscow had become known. With his accustomed vigour he soon restored tranquillity and confidence in the capital, raised three hundred and fifty thousand men by a conscription voted by the obsequious Senate, and contrived to wring from the Pope a Concordat, wherein his Holiness yielded up the point for which he had lost the papal throne and suffered so long an exile. Confident in the moral and religious powers thus acquired by a reconciliation with the Church, Napoleon’s joy was intense. He put forth the whole strength of his varied resources to place his army upon the best footing. In the meantime, however, the forces under the Duke of Wellington were advancing; and while the storm gathered fast in Spain, outraged Germany was marshalling her forces to expel the invader from her confines. The decisive battle of Vittoria was fought on the 21st of June, 1813, and Pampeluña besieged in the latter end of July. The British army under Wellington entered France on the 8th of October, and Pampeluña surrendered on the 31st of the same month. England had also secretly opened negotiations with Austria, which, favoured by Wellington’s victories, were brought to a satisfactory conclusion; and, with the view of crushing her formidable enemy, she poured out her treasure like water. Portugal received from her a loan of two millions sterling; Sicily four hundred thousand; Spain, in money and stores, two millions; Sweden a million; Russia and Prussia three millions; Austria one million; besides warlike stores sent to Germany to the amount of two millions more. The war on the continent cost England this year, in subsidies or other contributions to foreign powers, ten million four hundred thousand pounds; and the total expenditure of England for 1813-14 amounted to the enormous sum of one hundred and eighteen millions; the sum paid for transports alone being 565,790l.