The real cause of seizing the territories of an unoffending prince, who was totally helpless, unless in so far as right or justice could afford him protection, was Buonaparte's previous resolution, already hinted at, to incorporate Hesse-Cassel with the adjacent territories, for the purpose of forming a kingdom to be conferred on his youngest brother Jerome. This young person bore a gay and dissipated character; and, though such men may at times make considerable sacrifices for the indulgence of transient passion, they are seldom capable of retaining for a length of time a steady affection for an object, however amiable. Jerome Buonaparte, as before stated, had married an American young lady, distinguished for her beauty and her talents, and had thus lost the countenance of Napoleon, who maintained the principle, that segregated as his kindred were from the nation at large, by their connexion with him, his rank, and his fortunes, they were not entitled to enter into alliances according to the dictates of their own feelings, but were bound to form such as were most suitable to his policy. Jerome was tempted by ambition finally to acquiesce in this reasoning, and sacrificed the connexion which his heart had chosen, to become the tool of his brother's ever-extending schemes of ambition. The reward was the kingdom of Westphalia, to which was united Hesse-Cassel, with the various provinces which Prussia had possessed in Franconia, Westphalia Proper, and Lower Saxony; as also the territories of the unfortunate Duke of Brunswick. Security could be scarcely supposed to attend upon a sovereignty, where the materials were acquired by public rapine, and the crown purchased by domestic infidelity.
About the middle of November, Mortier formally re-occupied Hanover in the name of the Emperor, and, marching upon Hamburgh, took possession of that ancient free town, so long the emporium of commerce for the north of Europe. Here, as formerly at Leipsic, the strictest search was made for British commodities and property, which were declared the lawful subject of confiscation. The Moniteur trumpeted forth, that these rigorous measures were accompanied with losses to British commerce which would shake the credit of the nation. This was not true. The citizens of Hamburgh had long foreseen that their neutrality would be no protection, and, in spite of the fraudful assurances of the French envoy, designed to lull them into security, the merchants had availed themselves of the last two years to dispose of their stock, call in their capital, and wind up their trade; so that the rapacity of the French was in a great measure disappointed. The strict search after British property, and the confiscation which was denounced against it at Hamburgh and elsewhere, were no isolated acts of plunder and spoliation, but made parts of one great system for destroying the commerce of England, which was shortly after laid before the world by the celebrated decrees of Berlin.[253]
It was frequently remarked of Buonaparte, that he studied a sort of theatrical effect in the mode of issuing his decrees and proclamations, the subject matter of which formed often a strange contrast with the date; the latter, perhaps, being at the capital of some subdued monarch, while the matter promulgated respected some minute regulation affecting the municipality of Paris. But there was no such discrepancy in the date and substance of the Berlin decrees against British enterprise. It was when Buonaparte had destroyed the natural bulwark which protected the independence of the north of Germany, and had necessarily obtained a corresponding power on the shores of the Baltic, that he seriously undertook to promulgate his sweeping plan of destroying the commerce of his Island foe.[254]
When slight inconveniences, according to Buonaparte's expression, put an end to his hopes of invading Britain, or when, as at other times he more candidly admitted, the defeat at Trafalgar induced him "to throw helve after hatchet," and resign all hope of attaining any success by means of his navy, he became desirous of sapping and undermining the bulwark, which he found it impossible to storm; and, by directing his efforts to the destruction of British commerce, he trusted gradually to impair the foundations of her national wealth and prosperity. He erred, perhaps, in thinking that, even if his object could have been fully attained, the full consequences would have followed which his animosity anticipated. Great Britain's prosperity mainly rests on her commerce, but her existence as a nation is not absolutely dependent upon it; as those foreigners are apt to imagine, who have only seen the numerous vessels with which she covers the ocean and fills foreign ports, but have never witnessed the extent of her agricultural and domestic resources. But, entertaining the belief which Napoleon did, in regard to the indispensable connexion betwixt British commerce and British power, the policy of his war upon the former cannot be denied. It was that of the Abyssynian hunter, who, dreading to front the elephant in his fury, draws his sabre along the animal's heel-joint, and waits until the exertions of the powerful brute burst the injured sinews, and he sinks prostrate under his own weight.
BERLIN DECREES.
The celebrated Decrees of Berlin appeared on the 21st November, 1806, interdicting all commerce betwixt Great Britain and the continent; which interdiction was declared a fundamental law of the French empire, until the English should consent to certain alterations in the mode of conducting hostilities by sea, which should render her naval superiority less useful to herself, and less detrimental to the enemy. This measure was justified upon the following grounds:—That England had either introduced new customs into her maritime code, or revived those of a barbarous age—that she seized on merchant vessels, and made their crews prisoners, just as if they had been found on board ships of war—declared harbours blockaded which were not so in reality—and extended the evils of war to the peaceful and unarmed citizen.
This induction to the celebrated project, afterwards called the Continental System of the Emperor, was false in the original proposition, and sophistical in those by which it was supported. It was positively false that Great Britain had introduced into her maritime law, either by new enactment, or by the revival of obsolete and barbarous customs, any alteration by which the rights of neutrals were infringed, or the unarmed citizen prejudiced, more than necessarily arose out of the usual customs of war. The law respecting the blockade of ports, and the capture of vessels at sea, was the same on which every nation had acted for three centuries past, France herself not excepted. It is true, that the maritime code seemed at this period to be peculiarly that of England, because no nation save herself had the means of enforcing them; but she did not in this respect possess any greater advantage by sea than Napoleon enjoyed by land.
The reasoning of the Emperor Napoleon upon the inequality and injustice of the maritime mode of exercising war, compared with the law of hostilities by land, was not more accurate than his allegation that Britain had innovated upon the former for the purpose of introducing new, or reviving old severities. This will appear plain from the following considerations:—
At an early period of society, the practice of war was doubtless the same by land or sea; and the savage slaughtered or enslaved his enemy whether he found him in his hut or in his canoe. But when centuries of civilisation began to mitigate the horrors of barbarous warfare, the restrictive rules introduced into naval hostilities were different from those adopted in the case of wars by land, as the difference of the services obviously dictated. A land army has a precise object, which it can always attain if victorious. If a general conquer a town, he can garrison it; he can levy contributions; nay, he may declare that he will appropriate it to himself in right of sovereignty. He can afford to spare the property of private individuals, when he is at liberty to seize, if he is so minded, upon all their public rights, and new-mould them at his pleasure. The seaman, on the other hand, seizes on the merchant vessel and its cargo, by the same right of superior force, in virtue of which the victor by land has seized upon castles, provinces, and on the very haven, it may be, which the vessel belongs to. If the maritime conqueror had no right to do this, he would gain nothing by his superiority except blows, when he met with vessels of force, and would be cut off from any share of the spoils of war, which form the reward of victory. The innocent and unarmed citizen, perhaps the neutral stranger, suffers in both cases; but a state of war is of course a state of violence, and its evils, unhappily, cannot be limited to those who are actually engaged in hostilities. If the spirit of philanthropy affected in the peroration to Buonaparte's decrees had been real, he might have attained his pretended purpose of softening the woes of war, by proposing some relaxation of the rights of a conqueror by land, in exchange for restrictions to be introduced into the practice of hostilities by sea. Instead of doing so, he, under the pretext of exercising the right of reprisals, introduced the following Decrees, unheard of hitherto among belligerent powers, and tending greatly to augment the general distress, which must, under all circumstances, attend a state of war.
I. The British isles were declared in a state of blockade. II. All commerce and correspondence with England was forbidden. All English letters were to be seized in the post-houses. III. Every Englishman, of whatever rank or quality, found in France, or the countries allied with her, was declared a prisoner of war. IV. All merchandise, or property of any kind, belonging to English subjects, was declared lawful prize. V. All articles of English manufacture, and articles produced in her colonies, were in like manner declared contraband and lawful prize. VI. Half of the produce of the above confiscations was to be employed in the relief of those merchants whose vessels had been captured by the English cruizers. VII. All vessels coming from England, or the English colonies, were to be refused admission into any harbour. Four additional articles provided the mode of promulgating and enforcing the decree, and directed that it should be communicated to the allies of France.