CHAP. XXIX.

The Berlin Decrees-Remarks on the Continental System-its Tendencies to produce Napoleon's Fall. NAPOLEON had achieved the total humiliation of the Prussian monarchy in a campaign of a week's duration yet severe as the exertions of his army had been, and splendid his success, and late as the season was now advanced, there ensued no pause of inaction: the emperor himself remained but a few days in Berlin.

This brief residence, however, was distinguished by the issue of the famous decrees of Berlin; those extraordinary edicts by which Bonaparte hoped to sap the foundations of the power of England-the one power which he had no means of assailing by his apparently irresistible arms.

'Napoleon declared the British Islands to be in a state of blockade: any intercourse with that country was henceforth to be a crime; all her citizens found in any country in alliance with France to be prisoners; every article of English produce or manufacture, wherever discovered, to be confiscated. In a word, wherever France had power, the slightest communication with England was henceforth to be treason against the majesty of Napoleon; and every coast of Europe was to be lined with new armies of douaniers and gensd'armes, for the purpose of carrying into effect what he called the continental system."

I shall here bestow a few remarks on the famous continental system, as, perhaps more than any other person, I had opportunities of witnessing its fraud, and estimating its ruinous consequences. This system originated in the war of 1806, and was brought into opera tion on the 21st of November of that year, by a decree dated at Berlin.* The plan was conceived by weakminded counsellors, who, perceiving the emperor's just indignation against the duplicity of England, her repugnance to enter into serious negotiations with him, and her incessant endeavours to arm the continent against

* Sir Walter Scott, misinformed on this point, cites another decree dated Hamburg, 1807. Napoleon never was at Hamburg. The famous decree of Berlin was dated from that city on the 21st of November, 1806.

him, had prevailed on him to issue this decree, which I can never view in any other light than as an act of tyranny and madness. It was not a decree, but fleets that were necessary. Without a navy, it was ridiculous to declare the British Isles in a state of blockade, whilst the English fleets we actually blockading all the French ports. This declaration, however, was made by Napoleon in the Berlin decree, and this is what was called the continental system! a system of fraud, of peculation, and pillage. One can scarcely now conceive how Europe could endure for a single day that fiscal tyranny, which extorted exorbitant prices for articles, which the habits of three centuries had rendered equally indispensable to rich and poor. So far from true is it, that this system had for its sole and exclusive object the prevention of the sale of English goods, that licenses for that purpose were granted to any who were rich enough to pay for them. The quantity and quality of exported French goods were magnified to an extravagant degree. In order to comply with the emperor's wishes, it was necessary to take out a certain quantity of those articles, but it was only to throw them into the sea. And yet no one had the honesty to tell the emperor, that England found a market for her goods on the continent, but bought scarcely any thing. The speculation in licenses was carried to a scandalous extent, merely to enrich a favoured few, and to satisfy the shortsighted views of its besotted contrivers. This system proves what is written in the annals of the human heart and mind, that the cupidity of the one is insatiable, and the errors of the other incorrigible. Of this I will cite an example, though it relates to a period subsequent to that in which this detestable system originated. At Hamburg, in 1811, under Davoust's government, a poor man narrowly escaped being shot for having brought into the department of the Elbe a small loaf of sugar for the use of his family, whilst at the same moment, perhaps, Napoleon was signing a license for the importation of a million of sugar loaves. Smuggling on a small scale was punished by death, whilst the government carried it on wholesale. Thus the effect of the same law was to fill the treasury with money, and the prisons with victims.

The excise laws of this period, which carried on a

war of extermination against rhubarb, and kept a coastguard along the continent to prevent the introduction of senna, could not preserve the continental system itself from destruction. Ridicule attended the installation of the detested prevotal courts. At Hamburg, the president of one of them, who was a Frenchman, delivered an oration, in which he attempted to prove, that in the time of the Ptolemies there had existed extraordinary tribunals for the regulation of the customs, and that to them Egypt was indebted for her prosperity. Thus, insulting irony and the most absurd folly were added to intimidation. The ordinary excise officers, formerly so much abhorred in Hamburg, truly observed, that they would soon be regretted, and that the difference between them and the prevotal courts would very shortly be felt. Bonaparte's counsellors led him to commit so gross an absurdity as to require, that every vessel which had obtained a license, should export merchandise equivalent to the colonial produce licensed to be imported. And what was the consequence? Old stores of silks, which the change of fashion had rendered wholly unsaleable, were bought up at a low price, and being prohibited in England were thrown into the sea. The slight loss this occasioned was amply recompensed by the profits of the speculation.

The continental system, which was worthy only of the dark and barbarous ages, and which, had it been even admissible in theory, was perfectly impracticable in its application, can never be sufficiently stigmatized. No real friends to the emperor were they who could recommend to him such a system, calculated as it infallibly was, to excite the indignation of Europe, and eventually to produce the most terrible re-action. To tyrannise over the human species, and at the same time to expect their uniform admiration and submission, is clearly to require an impossibility. It would seem as if Fate, which had still some splendid triumphs in store for Napoleon, was already, too, preparing those causes which were at once to wrest them from him, and plunge him into disasters, even greater than the good fortune which had favoured his elevation. The prohibition of trade, the constant severity in the execution of this detested system, amounted to nothing short of a continental impost. Of this I will give a proof, and I state

nothing but from personal observation. The customhouse regulations were strictly enforced at Hamburg, and along the two lines of Cuxhaven and Travemunde. Mr. Eudel, the director of this department, performed his duty with zeal and disinterestedness, and I am happy in rendering him this deserved testimony. Immense quantities of English merchandise and colonial produce were accumulated at Holstein, where they almost all arrived by way of Kiel and Hudsum, having been brought over the line at the expense of a premium of from thirty-three to forty per cent. Convinced of this fact, by a thousand proofs, and weary of the vexations of the system, I took upon myself to lay my ideas on the subject before the emperor. He had given me permission to write to him direct, without any intermediate agency, upon whatever I might consider essential to his service. I sent an extraordinary courier to Fontainebleau, where he then was, and in my despatch informed him, that, in spite of his preventive guard, contraband goods were smuggled in, because the profits on their sale in Germany, Poland, Italy, and even France, to which they found their way, were too considerable, not to induce persons to run all hazards to obtain them. I recommended, at the very time that he was about to unite the Hanse Towns to the French empire, that such merchandise should be openly imported upon paying a duty of thirty-three per cent., which was about equal to the rate of their insurance. The emperor did not hesitate to adopt my suggestion; and, in 1811, the measure produced a revenue in Hamburg alone of upwards of sixty millions of francs. This system embroiled us with Sweden and Russia, who could but ill endure that a strict blockade should be required from them, whilst Napoleon himself was distributing licenses at his pleasure. Bernadotte, on his way to Sweden, passed through Hamburg in October, 1810. He stayed with me three days, during which he scarcely saw any one but myself. He asked my opinion as to what he should do relative to the continental system. I did not hesitate in telling him, not of course as a minister of France, but as a private individual to his friend, that, in his place, at the head of a poor nation, which could only exist by the exchange of its natural productions with England, I would open my ports, and give the Swedes gratuitously that general license which Bona

parte was selling in detail to intrigue and cupidity. The ill-advised Berlin decree could not but produce a reaction fatal to the emperor's fortune, by making whole nations his enemies. The hurling of twenty kings from their thrones would have excited less hatred than this contempt for the wants of the people. This profound ignorance of the maxims of political economy was the source of general privation and misery, which in their turn produced general hostility. The system could only succeed in the impossible event of all the powers of Europe honestly making common cause to carry it into effect. A single free port would destroy it. To ensure its complete success, it was necessary to conquer and occupy every country, and never to withdraw from any. As a means of ruining England it was perfectly ridiculous, since by prohibiting all intercourse with that country the interests of every other must have suffered. It was necessary too that the whole of Europe should be compelled, by force of arms, to enter into this absurd coalition, and that the same force should constantly be maintained to support it. Was this possible? This system has been styled the essence of despotism, an expression which correctly defines it. The captain reporter of a court-martial had sanctioned the acquittal of a poor peasant, convicted of having purchased a loaf of sugar beyond the custom-house limits. This officer being some time afterwards at a grand dinner given by Marshal Davoust, in the midst of the entertainment, the latter said to him, 'You have a very tender conscience, Sir;' and upon the captain's attempting to explain, he interrupted him, adding, 'Go to head-quarters, and you will find an order there for you.' This order sent him eighty leagues from Hamburg. It is necessary to have witnessed as I did the countless vexations and miseries occasioned by this deplorable system, to form a due conception of the mischief its authors did in Europe, and how greatly the hatred and revenge which it produced contributed to Napoleon's fall.