by the British ministry, directing the seizure of "all ships laden
with goods the produce of any colony belonging to France, or carrying
provisions or other supplies for the use of any such colony." This
order was based upon the Rule of 1756, so called from the war in which
it first came conspicuously into notice, and the principle of which, as
stated by British authorities, was that a trade forbidden to neutrals
by the laws of a country, during peace, could not be lawfully carried
on by them in time of war, for the convenience of the belligerent;
because, by such employment, their ships "were in effect incorporated
in the enemy's navigation, having adopted his commerce and character
and identified themselves with his interests and purposes."[300] At
that time the colonial trade was generally reserved to the mother
country; and against it particularly, together with the coasting
trade, similarly restricted, was this ruling of the British courts and
government directed. Neutrals replied, "Because the parent country
monopolizes in peace the whole commerce of its colonies, does it follow
that in war it should have no right to regulate it at all?"[301] "We
deny that municipal regulations, established in peace, can in any wise
limit the public rights of neutrals in time of war."[302] It is evident
that these two lines of argument do not fairly meet each other; they
resemble rather opposite and equal weights in a balance, which will
quickly be overturned when passion or interest, combined with power, is
thrown in upon either side. Starting from such fundamentally different
premises, interested parties might argue on indefinitely in parallel
lines, without ever approaching a point of contact.
The chief present interest in this question, referring as it does
to an obsolete colonial policy, is as illustrative of one of those
dead-locks, which, occurring at a critical moment, when passion or
interest is aroused, offer no solution but by war. It was useless to
point out that Great Britain relaxed in every direction her own peace
regulations, for the advantage of British commerce in the present
contest. The reply was perfectly apt, that she did not dispute the
right of her enemy to avail himself of any help the neutral could give;
she only asserted the determination not to permit the neutral to extend
it with impunity. There was no doubt, in the mind of any considerable
body of Englishmen, as to the perfect soundness of the English
doctrine. Lord Howick, who, as Mr. Grey, had embarrassed his party in
1792 by the exuberance of his liberalism,[303] as foreign minister
in 1807 wrote: "Neutrality, properly considered, does not consist in
taking advantage of every situation between belligerent states by which
emolument may accrue to the neutral, whatever may be the consequences
to either belligerent party; but in observing a strict and honest
impartiality, so as not to afford advantage in the war to either; and,
particularly, in so far restraining its trade to the accustomed course
which it held in time of peace, as not to render assistance to one
belligerent in escaping the effects of the other's hostilities."[304]
An agreement among any number of the subjects of the interested nation
proves nothing as to the right of the question, but the irreconcilable
divergence of views at this time shows most clearly the necessity,
under which every country lies, to be ready to support its own sense of
its rights and honor by force, if necessary.
Under the order of November 6, some hundreds of American ships were
seized and brought into West Indian ports by British cruisers.[305] The
application of the order to them was, however, liable to two serious
objections, even admitting the principle. In the first place, it was
made without warning, under a rule that was at least not generally
accepted; and in the second place, the trade between the French West
India Islands and the United States had been permitted, before the
war, in vessels of sixty tons and upwards.[306] In the year ending
September 30, 1790, fifty-seven thousand tons of American shipping
entered home ports from the French colonies. The trade, therefore, was
one that existed prior to the war, and so did not come under the rule
of 1756.[307] The order of November 6 was not made public until nearly
the end of the year; the United States minister in London not receiving
a copy until Christmas Day. He hastened at once to protest, but before
he could obtain an audience a second was issued, January 8, 1794,
revoking the former and limiting the operations of the rule to vessels
bound from the colonies direct to Europe. Although the principle was
maintained by the new order, and not admitted by the United States,
still, as their own trade was excepted, much dissatisfaction was
removed.
The serious nature of the difficulties that had already arisen
determined the government to send an extraordinary envoy to England.
John Jay was nominated to this office, and reached London in June,
1794. The British government, having already receded from its first
position, as well as revoked the order of June 8, 1793, for the
seizure of provisions, found no difficulty in assuming a conciliatory
attitude. The result of Jay's mission was a treaty of Commerce and
Navigation, concluded November 19, 1794, the first contracted between
the two countries since the separation. The injuries done to American
commerce, under the orders of November 6, were to be submitted to a
joint commission. The report of the latter was not made until 1804,
but by it compensation was made for most of the seizures; and it was
claimed in the following year by Mr. Monroe, then envoy in London, that
the decision of the commission definitely disposed of the principle of
the Rule of 1756. It does not appear, however, that its power extended
further than the settlement of the cases. There, its decision was to be
final; but it had no power to commit either government to any general
principle of international law not otherwise established.[308] The
Rule of 1756 was not mentioned in the treaty, and the failure to do so
may be construed as a tacit acquiescence, or at least submission, on
the part of the United States.[309] On the other hand, considerable
commercial advantages were obtained. Great Britain conceded to American
ships the privilege of direct trade between their own country and the
British East and West Indies, but they were precluded from carrying
the produce of those colonies to other foreign ports. Indeed, so great
was the anxiety of the British ministers to prevent coffee and sugar
from being taken to Europe, indirectly, by neutral ships, that they
insisted upon, and Jay admitted, a stipulation that while the trade
with the British West Indies was permitted, the United States would not
allow the carrying of any molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, or cotton
in American vessels to any other part of the world than to the United
States. This would have stopped a profitable trade already open to
American merchants, who first imported, and then re-exported to France,
the produce of the French islands; the broken voyage being considered
to purge the origin of the commodities. This article (the twelfth) was
accordingly rejected by the Senate, and only as thus modified was the
treaty ratified by both powers.
The French government had viewed with distrust the negotiation between
Great Britain and the United States. Although assured by Mr. Jay,
through the American minister at Paris, that the treaty contained an
express stipulation guarding the existing conventions between France
and his own country, the Directory had the insolence to demand a copy
of the instrument, to which it considered itself entitled, although
it had not yet been communicated to the United States government.
When the terms finally became known, its indignation passed bounds.
The principal points to which it took exception were two, wherein
the United States admitted conditions favoring the interests of
belligerents relatively to neutrals, and against which the chief
efforts of the weaker maritime states had been addressed. The first
of these was the well-settled principle that a neutral ship did not
protect property belonging to an enemy, laden on board it. The United
States had always admitted this as valid, while trying to introduce, as
an innovation, the contrary rule. In the treaty of 1778 with France,
the two countries had stipulated that in any future war in which one
of them should be engaged the belligerent should respect his enemy's
property, if under the flag of the other party to the compact; but
the United States did not think that this agreement between two
nations overturned for all others a settled usage. The interests of
Great Britain indisposed her to accept the proposed change, and the
old principle was explicitly accepted in the seventeenth article of
Jay's treaty. The other point objected to by France referred to the
definitions of contraband of war. This has always been, and still
is, one of the most difficult problems of international law; for an
article may be of the first importance in the wars of one age or one
country, and of slight consequence in another century or a different
scene. By Jay's treaty the United States allowed that naval stores
were, and under some circumstances provisions might be, contraband of
war, and therefore liable to seizure. A free trade in these articles
was of great importance to the Americans; but they were weak then, as
in a military sense they, with far less excuse, are now; and then, as
now, they must submit in questions of doubtful right. The material
interests of United States citizens, as distinguished from the national
self-respect, were in part saved by Great Britain undertaking to pay
for provisions when seized as contraband. All these conditions bore
against the wishes of the French, who regarded the Americans as owing
an undischarged debt of gratitude to them for the scanty, though
certainly most important, aid extended in the Revolutionary struggle
by the monarch whom his people had since beheaded; and from this time
the arrogance with which the French government had treated that of
the United States became tinged with acrimony. It refused to see the
difficulties and weakness of the new and still scarcely cemented body
of states; or that, indirectly, the bargain struck by the latter was
upon the whole as advantageous to France herself as could be expected,
when Great Britain had an absolute control over the sea and all that
floated upon it. To imperious rebukes and reproaches succeeded a series
of measures, outraging neutral and treaty rights, which finally led to
hostilities between the two countries.
From the time of Jay's treaty to the peace of Amiens, and until the
year 1804 in the following war, the relations between Great Britain
and the United States remained on a fairly settled basis. Innumerable
vexations, indeed, attended neutral commerce at the hands of cruisers
who were willing on slight grounds to seize a prize, taking the
chance of the courts deciding in their favor, and the delays of prize
courts added greatly to the annoyance; but upon the whole American
trade throve greatly. In June, 1797, the Secretary of State reported,
in reply to a resolution of the House, that "captures and losses by
British cruisers, it is presumed, have not been numerous; for the
citizens of the United States having, these three years past, been
accustomed to look to the government for aid in prosecuting these
claims, it is not to be doubted that, generally, these cases have
been reported to the Department." In 1801 there was an outbreak of
lawless seizure in the West Indies.[310] The American vessels engaged
in that trade were small, and, as legal expenses were the same for
a large as for a small prize, the cost of a contest amounted to a
sum very disproportionate to the value of the ship; so the captors
hoped, by the well-known delays of procedure, to extort a compromise.
An abuse of this kind, however outrageous, is different in principle
from the direct action of a government; nor are such cases the only
ones in which men have been willing to take dishonest advantage of the
imperfections, ambiguities, or delays of the law.[311] The Secretary
of State, in transmitting a report on the subject to the House of
Representatives, said, "Neither the communications from our minister
at London, nor my conversations with the Chargé d'Affaires of his
Britannic Majesty in the United States, would lead to an opinion that
any additional orders have lately been given by the British government,
authorizing the system of depredation alluded to."[312]
In fact, at this time Pitt's government seems to have considered all
trade, which did not go direct to hostile countries, an advantage to
Great Britain, and especially if it could be drawn to pass through
her own ports. Accordingly, in January, 1798, a further relaxation of
the Rule of 1756 was promulgated, extending to European neutrals the
concession made in 1794 to the United States. British cruisers were now
directed not to capture neutral ships, bound from the hostile colonies
to Europe and laden with colonial produce, provided the latter had
become neutral property and its destination was to their own country,
or to a port of Great Britain. The final clause foreshadowed the policy
of the Orders in Council of ten years later, towards which Great
Britain, under the stress of war, was steadily gravitating. The law
of self-preservation, divined by the instinct of the state, demanded
that the United Kingdom should become, for that war, the storehouse of
the world's commerce. The more thriving that commerce, the better for
her, if it could be concentrated in her own borders. Thus France and
the whole world should become tributary to a wealth and to a power by
which, not Great Britain only, but the world should be saved. It was
a great conception, of slow growth and gradual realization; it was
disfigured in its progress by imperfections, blunders, and crimes;
but it was radically sound and in the end victorious, for upon Great
Britain and upon commerce hung the destinies of the world.
The action of France towards neutral, and especially towards American,
vessels reflected the instability and excitement of the successive
French governments, the violent passions of the time, and the
uncertainty necessarily attendant upon the course of a nation which,
having cut adrift from fixed principles and precedents, is guided
only by changing impressions of right and wrong. The decree of the
9th of May, 1793, arresting vessels laden with provisions or carrying
enemy's goods, was revoked as regards the United States on the 23d
of the same month, because contrary to the treaty of 1778. On the
28th, five days later, the revocation was revoked, and the original
order established.[313] On the first of July the decision was again
reversed and the treaty ordered to be observed; notwithstanding which
the United States minister found it impossible to obtain the release
of vessels seized contrary to its terms, and on the 27th of the month
the last decision was again repealed.[314] On the 22d of September the
American minister writes: "I understand it is still in contemplation
to repeal the decree I complained of, and that in the mean time it has
not been transmitted to the tribunals. In effect, it can do very little
harm; because the fleets of this country are confined by the enemy,
and the privateers by a decree of the Convention."[315] Here matters
rested during the Reign of Terror and until November 15, 1794, after
the fall of Robespierre, when the Directory issued its first edict on
the subject; reiterating that enemy's goods under the neutral flag
would be considered liable to seizure, until the powers, enemies of
France, should declare French property free on board neutral ships.
This made the treatment of cargoes on American vessels depend, not upon
the formal engagements of France with the United States, but upon the
conduct of Great Britain; and it was succeeded, on the 3d of January,
1795, by a decree of revocation. Enemy's goods under neutral flags
now remained exempt from capture until the 2d of July, 1796; when
proclamation was issued, notifying neutral powers that the ships of
the French Republic would be used against their merchant vessels, were
it for the purpose of confiscation, search or detention, in the same
manner that they suffered the English to act in regard to them. Great
Britain was thus made supreme arbiter of the conduct of France towards
neutrals.
This last step of the French government was directly traceable to its
dissatisfaction with Jay's treaty, the ratifications of which had
been exchanged at London on the 28th of October, 1795. On the 16th of
February, 1796, the Minister of Foreign Affairs told Mr. Monroe, the
American minister, that his government considered the alliance between
the two countries, formed by the treaty of 1778, to be terminated,
_ipso facto_, by Jay's treaty; and on the 7th of October he was further
informed that the minister to the United States had been recalled
and would not be replaced. Meanwhile President Washington, being
dissatisfied with Monroe's conduct, had summoned him home and sent out
Mr. Pinckney as his relief; but the Directory, on the 11th of December,
refused to receive any minister plenipotentiary from the United States
until the grievances it had alleged were redressed,[316] and on the
25th of January, 1797, Pinckney was ordered to leave the country as an
unauthorized foreigner.
France was now fully embarked on a course of violence toward the United
States, which arose, not from any reasonable cause of discontent given,
but from the disposition, identical with that shown toward the weaker
European nations, to compel all countries to follow the dictates of
the French policy. The utterly loose terms of the decree of July 2,
1796, authorized the seizure of any neutral vessel by a French captain,
if, in his judgment, the conduct of Great Britain toward the neutral
justified it; and left the ultimate fate of the prize to a tribunal
governed only by its own opinion upon the same subject. "You are
mistaken," said a French deputy, "if you think that a privateer sails
furnished with instructions from the Minister of Marine, who ought
to direct their action. The instructions are drawn up by his owners;
they indicate to the captain what he may seize and what release. They
compile for him his duties under all the rules, under all the laws,
contradictory or otherwise, from the year 1400 up to the law of Nivôse
29, An 6" (Jan. 18, 1798).[317]
In the West Indies the French agents, practically removed from all
control of the home government by the British command of the sea,
issued on the 27th of November, 1796, a decree for the capture of
Americans bound to, or coming from, British ports. They had already, on
the first of August, directed that all vessels having contraband goods
on board should be seized and condemned, whatever their destination,
and although the accepted law condemned only the contraband articles
themselves, not the ship nor the rest of the cargo. On the first of the
following February the same commissioners ordered the capture of all
neutrals sailing for the French islands which had surrendered to the
enemy, and declared them good prize. That these acts fairly represented
the purpose of the Directory may be inferred from the capture of
American ships in European waters under the decree of July 2, and
from the fact that the French consuls at Malaga and Cadiz interpreted
the decree to authorize seizure and condemnation for the single
circumstance of being destined for a British port.[318] Over three
hundred American vessels were thus seized, and most of them condemned.
Envoys sent from the United States to treat concerning these matters
said, in October, 1797, that France had violently taken from America
over fifteen million dollars.[319] "At no period of the war," wrote
they again, February 7, 1798, "has Britain undertaken to exercise such
a power. At no period has she asserted such a right."[320] "Was there
ever anything," said the deputy before quoted, "like the injustice of
the condemnations in the Antilles?"
These irregular and arbitrary proceedings are chiefly significant as
showing the lack of any fixed principles of action on the part of the
French government and its agents; and they were closely connected
with similar courses towards neutral vessels in French ports. At the
outbreak of hostilities in 1793, one hundred and three American ships
were embargoed at Bordeaux and detained more than a year, without
any reason given; nor had the owners been indemnified in 1796.[321]
Cargoes were forcibly taken from vessels and payment either refused
or offered in kind, and so delayed that in the West Indies alone the
American losses were calculated at two million dollars. Besides these
acts, which had the character of spoliations, the contracts and other
financial obligations of the French government and its agents with
citizens of the United States remained undischarged. The irritation
between the two governments, and on the part of American merchants,
continued to increase rapidly. The decree of July 2, the essence of
which was the formal repudiation of a clause of the treaty of 1778, at
the time when alone it became applicable, remained in force; and was
rendered more obnoxious by a further order, of March 2, 1797, making
more stringent the proofs of neutrality to be adduced before French
tribunals and requiring papers which had long been disused.
At this time the astonishing successes of Bonaparte's Italian campaigns
were approaching their triumphant conclusion. The battle of Rivoli
had been fought on the 14th of January, 1797,[322] Mantua capitulated
on the 2d of February, and the Pope had been compelled to sue for
peace. To Austria there remained only the hope of contesting the
approach to her German dominions. The confidence of the Directors
knew no bounds, and they now began to formulate the policy toward
British commerce which Napoleon inherited from them. The design was
formed of forcing the United States to recede from the obnoxious
conventions of Jay's treaty; and the government of Holland, then
entirely dependent upon that of France, was pressed to demand that
Dutch property on board American vessels should be protected against
British seizure, and to suggest the concurrence of the three republics
against Great Britain.[323] The Dutch accordingly represented "that,
when circumstances oblige our commerce to confide its interests to the
neutral flag of American vessels, it has a just right to insist that
that flag be protected with energy;"[324] in other words, that, when
the British control of the sea forced the Dutch ships from it, Dutch
trade should be carried on under the American flag, and that the United
States should fight to prevent the seizure of the Dutch property,
although it admitted that the traditional law of nations would not
justify it in so doing. On the 6th of May, 1797, Spain also, doubtless
under the dictation of France, made the same demand.[324] Similar
representations were made to the other neutral country, Denmark. Here
is seen the forerunner of Napoleon's contention that, as against Great
Britain's control of the sea, no state had a right to be neutral. Soon
afterward the idea was carried farther. Denmark was requested to close
the mouth of the Elbe to British commerce. "The French," wrote our
minister to London on the 12th of March, 1797, "assign our treaty with
England as the cause of their maritime conduct toward us, but they have
recently demanded of Hamburg and Bremen to suspend all commerce with
England. These have not complied, and the French minister has been
recalled from Hamburg. The same demand has been made at Copenhagen, and
the refusal has produced a sharp diplomatic controversy. These powers
have made no late treaty with England."[325]
Hostilities with Austria had ceased by the preliminaries of Leoben,
April 18, followed, after long negotiations, by the treaty of Campo
Formio, October 17, 1797. Of the coalition against France, Great
Britain alone remained upright and defiant. She had in 1797, after
Austria had yielded, offered to negotiate; but the terms demanded
were such that she refused to accept them, and her envoy was ordered
out of France as peremptorily as Mr. Pinckney had been a few months
before. The Directory thought that the time was now come when she could
be brought to unconditional surrender, and the weapon by which her
commerce should be annihilated was already forged to its hand. On the
31st of October, 1796 (Brumaire 10, An 5),[326] a law had been passed
by the Legislature forbidding entirely the admission of any British
manufactured goods, directing that all persons who already had such in
possession should declare them within three days, and that they should
be at once packed and stored for re-exportation. In order to insure the
execution of the statute, domiciliary visits were authorized everywhere
within three leagues of the frontiers or sea-board, and throughout
France the dwellings of all tradesmen were also open to search. Laws of
similar purpose had been passed early in the war;[327] but they either
had been found insufficient or were no longer applicable to the changed
conditions of affairs. "Now that," to use the words of a deputy, "the
flags of the Republic or those of its allies float over the sea from
Embden to Trieste, and almost all the ports of the European seas are
closed to England, we must stop the voluntary subsidies which are
paid her by the consumers of English merchandise."[328] With Belgium
annexed, with Spain and Holland vassals rather than allies, with the
greater part of Italy in military occupation, it seemed possible to
repel the entrance points of British goods to the Continent far from
the French frontier, and by strict watchfulness to close the latter
against such as worked their way to it.
The expectation, however, was deceived; the superior quality and
abundance of British manufactures created a demand which evaded all
watchfulness and enlisted all classes against the officials. The
Directory therefore determined, toward the end of 1797, to put the
law into force with all severity and to introduce another and final
rigor into its maritime prize code. On the 4th of January, 1798, a
message was sent to the council of Five Hundred, announcing that "on
that very day the municipal administrators, the justices of the peace,
the commissaries of the Directory, and the superintendents of customs,
are proceeding in all the chief places of the departments, in all
the ports, and in all the principal communes, to seize all English
merchandise now in France in contravention of the law of Brumaire 10,
An 5. Such is the _first act_ by which, now that peace is given to the
Continent, the war declared long since against England is about to
assume the real character that belongs to it." But more was needed.
Neutral vessels were in the habit of entering British ports, shipping
British goods, and carrying on British trade; they were even known,
when opportunity offered, to introduce articles of British manufacture,
directly or indirectly, into France. By so doing they aided Great
Britain and actually took part in the war. "The Directory, therefore,
thinks it urgent and necessary to pass a law declaring that the
character of vessels, relative to their quality of neutral or enemy,
shall be determined by their cargo; ... in consequence, that every
vessel found at sea, having on board English merchandise as her cargo,
in whole or in part, shall be declared lawful prize, whosoever shall be
the proprietor of this merchandise, _which shall be reputed contraband
for this cause alone_, that it comes from England or her possessions."
This decree was adopted without discussion, in the very terms of the
Directory's message, on the 18th of January, 1798. From that time
forward, to use the expression of a French deputy, speaking a year
later on the proposed repeal of the law, "if a handkerchief of English
origin is found on board a neutral ship, both the rest of the cargo
and the ship itself are subject to condemnation." It is, perhaps, well
to point out that this differed from the Rule of 1756, by forbidding
a trade which at all times had been open to neutrals, in peace as in
war. It differed from the old rule condemning enemy's property found in
neutral bottoms, by condemning also neutral property of hostile origin,
together with the whole cargo and the ship, as contaminated by the
presence of any British goods.
Nevertheless, British commerce continued to thrive, and was rather
benefited than injured by the new law. What the indomitable purpose,
unlimited power, and extraordinary mental and physical activity of
Napoleon could only partially accomplish, proved to be wholly beyond
the weak arm of the Directory. When war first shut the ports of France
to Great Britain, her trade thither passed through the Netherlands
and Holland. When the Netherlands were overrun, Amsterdam monopolized
the traffic. With the fall of Holland, it passed away to Bremen and
Hamburg. The latter port, being farther east and more remote from the
French armies, naturally drew the greater part and became the real heir
of Amsterdam.[329] It was the emporium of Northern Germany, through
which poured the colonial produce of the world and the manufactures
of the British Islands, and from which they were distributed over
the Continent. The enormous subsidies paid by the United Kingdom to
Germany found their way back, in part at least, by the increased
purchasing power of the belligerent countries,[330] which consumed
the manufactures of Great Britain and the coffee and sugar which had
passed through her ports and paid toll to her revenues.[331] The
shipping clearing for Hamburg from British ports, which was naught in
1793, rose to fifty-three thousand tons in 1795; and in 1798, the year
during which the new French law operated, increased to seventy-four
thousand. But, while Hamburg was the great centre, all the northern
German ports shared the same prosperity. After Prussia retired from the
war against France, in April, 1795, a neutral North German territory
was established, behind a line agreed upon between the two countries.
The total tonnage entering the ports of this region increased from one
hundred and twenty thousand in 1792 to two hundred and six thousand in
1795; and in 1798 reached three hundred and three thousand. The value
of merchandise imported rose from £2,200,000 in 1792, to £8,300,000 in
1795, £11,000,000 in 1798, and £13,500,000 in 1800.[332]
A similar elasticity was shown by British trade throughout the world.
Only in the Mediterranean was there a marked decrease both of exports
and imports,—a loss partly filled by the enterprise of American
merchants;[333] but only partly, for the Barbary pirates seconded
the sweeping French decrees in excluding neutrals from that sea. But
it was in the West Indies, together with the German ports, that the
commercial activity of Great Britain found its greatest resources;
and in the steady support contributed by that region to her financial
stability is to be found the justification of the much derided policy
of Pitt in capturing sugar islands. Alike as valuable pieces of
property, as possessions to be exchanged when framing a treaty, and
as bases for cruisers, which not merely seized upon British shipping
but disturbed the commercial development of the whole region, each
hostile island should at once have been seized by Great Britain. In
a contest between equal navies for the control of the sea, to waste
military effort upon the capture of small islands, as the French
did in 1778, is a preposterous misdirection of effort; but when one
navy is overwhelmingly preponderant, as the British was after 1794,
when the enemy confines himself to commerce-destroying by crowds of
small privateers, then the true military policy is to stamp out the
nests where they swarm. If, by so doing, control is also gained of
a rich commercial region, as the Caribbean Sea then was, the action
is doubly justified. The produce of the West Indies, as of the East,
figured doubly in the returns of British commerce,—as imports, and as
re-exported to the Continent.[334] Each captured island contributed
to swell the revenues by which the war was maintained.[335] The
disappearance of the merchant fleets of France, Spain, and Holland, the
ruin of San Domingo, and the general disorganization of such French
islands as were not taken, threw the greater part of the production
of tropical articles into British hands; and the practice of the day,
which confined its transport to British ships, helped to support the
shipping interest also in the strain brought upon it by the war. The
Americans alone could compete in the continental market as carriers
of such produce. Debarred from going with it direct to Europe by the
Rule of 1756, the rise in price, due to the diminished production
and decrease of transport just mentioned, allowed them to take the
sugar and coffee of the colonies at war with England to American
ports, reship it to the Continent, and yet make a good profit on the
transaction. As the British colonists were in full possession of the
home market, and their produce commanded high prices, the outcry which
caused so much trouble ten years later was not now raised. On the
contrary, their prosperous condition facilitated the British orders of
January, 1798, exempting from capture Danes, Swedes, and other neutral
ships, when carrying coffee and sugar of hostile origin to their own
country, or to England.
It was against this great system of trade that the law of Nivôse 29
was launched. British manufactured goods, rather than British gold
and silver, bought and paid for the produce of the East and West
Indies, for that of the United States and of the Levant. The Continent
consumed the manufactures of Great Britain, the sugar and coffee of her
colonies, and obtained through British merchants the spices and wares
of the East; for all which it for the most part paid back specie. The
United States took specie from France herself for the colonial produce
carried there in its vessels, and with it paid Great Britain for her
manufactures. France herself received British goods through continental
channels, and paid hard cash for them. The money thus coming to London
had flowed back as subsidies to the armies of the coalitions. Now,
thanks to Bonaparte, Great Britain stood alone. The French navy was
powerless to contend with her fleets; but, by actual possession or by
treaty, the Directory had excluded her ships from a great part of the
Continent. Nevertheless, British goods abounded in all parts through
the complicity of neutral carriers. If these could be stopped, the
market for British manufactures would be closed; therefore against them
were launched the cruisers of France, with the authority of the decree
to capture any one of them found with a bale or box of British origin
on board. The result was curious.
After the lapse of a year, on the 13th of January, 1799, the Directory
addressed a message to the lower house of the Legislature[336] on the
subject of maritime prizes, in which occurred the celebrated avowal,
already quoted, that not a single merchant ship under French colors
sailed the deep seas. But this was not all. The irregularities and
outrages of privateers had so terrified neutrals that there had been an
immense diminution in the entries of neutral tonnage, although Great
Britain had rather relaxed than increased the severe rules she had
adopted early in the war. In consequence of the smaller importations
from abroad, there were necessarily smaller sales of French goods, and
the decrease of neutral carriers impeded the export of agricultural
produce and manufactures, as well as the importation of raw materials
essential to the latter. The Directory attributed the evil to an
existing ordinance, which left the final determination of prize
cases in the hands of the courts, instead of attributing it to the
executive. It argued that if there were a right of final appeal to the
latter, it could check the arbitrary proceedings of the cruisers and
the erroneous decisions of the judges. If, as was represented by the
American consulate at Paris, the courts of first instance were chiefly
composed of merchants in the sea-ports, most of whom were, directly
or indirectly, interested in fitting out privateers,[337] there was
certainly need of some change in the existing legislation. In the
Conseil des Anciens, however, a different view prevailed. On the 17th
of January, 1799, a debate began in that body, on a resolution fixing
the date when the law of January 18, 1798, became operative.[338] The
consequent discussion took a wide range over the policy and results
of the enactment, as shown by the year it had been in force. The
disastrous commercial condition of France was freely admitted on all
sides; but in several powerful speeches it was attributed directly and
convincingly to the working of the law itself. "Neutrals repelled from
our ports; our agricultural products without any outlet abroad; our
industry and commerce annihilated; our colonies helpless; our shipping
ways deserted; a balance of twenty thousand sailors in English prisons;
our ships of war without seamen,—such are the political effects of the
law which is ruining, crushing us."[339]
In less impassioned words, other deputies showed the unfairness of
the law. If, on the land frontier, a wagon was stopped carrying a
bale of British goods, the bale was confiscated, but the rest of the
load escaped. If in a ship a like bale was found, not only it, but
all the rest of the cargo and the ship itself were condemned. Even
in the fiercest heat of the Revolution and the utmost danger to the
country, it had never been attempted, as now, to forbid neutrals
carrying British goods to their own country.[340] The step could not
be justified under the plea of reprisals; for "if the English have
seized French goods on these same neutrals, they have not confiscated
the rest of the cargo. These are, therefore, not reprisals, but new
proceedings on our part, which neutrals could neither expect nor guard
against."[341] A neutral ship came within reach of the French coast
only at her extreme peril. A small package of British goods would
justify her capture by a French privateer, whatever her destination;
nay, even if she were bringing to France articles urgently needed, and
intended to take away French produce in exchange for them. Neutrals,
allies, even French vessels themselves, carrying on the little trade
with neighboring states, were preyed on by French corsairs. This
condition reacted on the enterprise of the cruisers themselves. It was
much safer, and quite as profitable, to keep close to the home coast
and board passing vessels. The merest trifle, smuggled on board by one
of the crew, or shipped unknown to the master and owner, made them good
prize. Owing to this caution, the captures brought into French home
ports had dropped, from six hundred and sixty-two in the previous year,
to four hundred and fifty-two, notwithstanding the vast extension of
the field for seizures.[342]
The loss of prizes, however, was far from being the worst effect of
the law. Neutrals being repelled, friendly and French shipping scared
away, commerce had been seriously crippled for want of carriage. In
the year before the enactment the coasting trade employed 895,000
tons; of which 120,000 were neutrals, by whom goods were transported
from one sea frontier of France to another, as from the Bay of Biscay
to the French Mediterranean coast. In the year following, the total
fell to 746,000; but the neutrals dropped to 38,000. In the foreign
trade 860,000 tons were employed in the year before the law, of which
623,000 were neutral. In the year following, the total fell to 688,000,
of which 468,000 were neutrals. There thus resulted a total loss of
322,000 tons in a commerce of only 1,750,000. To this the speaker added
a striking comparison: "In the same year in which we lost 322,000
tons by the operation of the law, we took four hundred and fifty-two
prizes. Assuming—what is not the case—that these were all English, and
that they averaged two hundred tons burden—an excessive allowance—we
have taken from our enemy 90,400 tons against 322,000 we have lost."
"All the sufferings of ourselves and allies might be borne, if good
resulted to ourselves or harm to England; but it has not." "English
ships are insured at a premium of five per cent, while neutrals bound
to France have to pay twenty to thirty per cent. Neutrals themselves
seek English convoy.[343] French merchants would gladly charter neutral
ships to carry to San Domingo the produce that is overflowing our
storehouses, and to bring back the coffee and sugar for which we are
paying such extravagant rates; but they will not come near us. So,
instead of paying a moderate price with French goods, we are paying
exorbitant rates in specie, which goes straight to England, our most
cruel foe."[344] The policy of the law was condemned by the results.
In support of its justice, it was alleged that there were at sea only
French and British ships, whence it followed that all which were not
French could be seized,—a contention which derives its sole present
interest from being the same as that put forth by Napoleon ten years
later. It shows again—what can scarcely be too often asserted in the
interests of truth—that the emperor was but the full and perfect
incarnation of the spirit that animated the Convention and the
Directory.
The Government of the United States had not yet, in 1798, passed
into the hands of men with an undue "passion for peace." Upon the
unceremonious dismissal of Mr. Pinckney, not for personal objections
but as rejecting any minister from America, the President had called a
special meeting of Congress in May, 1797, and recommended an increase
of the naval establishment. When the news of the law of January 18,
1798, reached the United States, Congress was in session. On the 28th
of May an act was approved, authorizing the capture of any French armed
vessel which shall, upon the coast of the United States, have committed
any depredation upon her commerce.[345] On the 7th of July another act
abrogated all existing treaties between the two countries;[346] and on
the 9th was decreed the seizure of French armed vessels anywhere on the
high seas, not only by public armed ships, but by privateers, which
the President was authorized to commission.[347] Thereupon followed a
period of maritime hostilities, though without a formal declaration of
war, which lasted three years; the first prize being taken from the
French in June, 1798, and peace being restored by a treaty, signed in
Paris September 30, 1800, and ratified the following February. The
small force of the United States was principally occupied in the West
Indies, protecting their trade,—both by the patrol system directed
against the enemy's cruisers, and by convoying bodies of merchantmen
to and from the islands. As the condition of the French navy did not
allow keeping large fleets afloat, the ships of the United States,
though generally small, were able to hold their ground, capture many
of the enemy, and preserve their own commerce from molestation. The
mercantile shipping of France, however, had already been so entirely
destroyed by Great Britain, that she suffered far more from the
cessation of the carrying trade, which Americans had maintained for
her, than from the attacks of the American navy.
The year 1798, which opened with the unlucky law of January 18, was in
all respects unfortunate for France. In May Bonaparte sailed for Egypt,
the country thus parting with its ablest general, with thirty-two
thousand of its best troops, and its only available fleet, of thirteen
sail-of-the-line, which the government with the utmost difficulty had
been able to equip. On the first of August Nelson destroyed the fleet
in the Battle of the Nile; and the British navy, forced to leave the
Mediterranean in 1796, again asserted its preponderance throughout the
whole of that sea, opposing an effectual barrier to the return of the
army in Egypt. The entire face of affairs changed, not only in the
East but in Europe. The Porte, at first hesitating, declared openly
against France. A second coalition was formed between Great Britain,
Austria, and Russia, to which Naples acceded; and the armies of the
latter entered upon their campaign in November. They were, indeed,
quickly overthrown; but the very march of the French troops against
them left the armies in northern Italy hopelessly inferior to their
opponents. The year 1799 was full of reverses. In Germany and in Italy
the French were steadily driven back; in Switzerland only did they,
under Masséna, hold their ground. The British indeed were repelled in
their attack upon Holland, but they carried away with them the Dutch
navy. A Russo-Turkish fleet, entering the Mediterranean, retook the
Ionian Islands from the French; and Admiral Bruix escaped from Brest
only to find it impossible to achieve any substantial results in the
face of the British superiority on the sea. In the midst of this
confusion and disaster, and amid the commercial and internal distress
caused by the maritime legislation, Bonaparte returned. Landing on the
9th of October, he on the 9th of November overthrew the Directory.
Preparations for war were at once begun, and the successes of the
first consul in Italy and of Moreau in Germany, in 1800, combined with
the defection of the czar from the coalition, restored peace to the
Continent and internal quiet to France.
Upon this followed the renewal of the Armed Neutrality of the Baltic
powers. Great Britain found herself again without an ally, face to face
with France, now supported by the naval combination of the northern
states. Still she stood resolute, abating not a jot of her asserted
maritime rights. As before, the allies demanded that the neutral flag
should cover the enemy's property that floated under it, and that the
term "contraband of war" should apply only to articles strictly and
solely applicable to warlike purposes, which, they claimed, naval
stores and provisions were not. They proposed also to deprive Great
Britain of the belligerent right of search, by sending ships of war
with the merchant ships, and requiring that the assertion of the naval
captain should be received as establishing the lawful character of
the two or three hundred cargoes under his convoy. "The question,"
said Pitt, "is whether we are to permit the navy of our enemy to be
recruited and supplied,—whether we are to suffer blockaded ports to be
furnished with warlike stores and provisions,—whether we are to suffer
neutral nations, by hoisting a flag upon a sloop or a fishing boat,
to convey the treasures of South America to the harbors of Spain, or
the naval stores of the Baltic to Brest and Toulon. I would ask, too,
has there ever been a period, since we have been a naval country, in
which we have acted upon this principle?"[348] and he alleged not only
the unbroken practice of Great Britain, but her old treaties with the
allied states, and especially the convention with Russia in 1793. So
far as precedent and tradition went, England's case was unimpeachable.
She was called upon to surrender, not a new pretension, but an old
right important to her military position. "I have no hesitation," said
Fox, Pitt's great opponent, "in saying that, as a general proposition,
'free bottoms do not make free goods;' and that, as an axiom, it is
supported neither by the law of nations nor by common-sense."[349]
At this time the British navy was superior to the combined forces of
all Europe. A fleet, of which Nelson was the animating spirit though
not the nominal head, entered the Baltic. Denmark was struck down on
the 2d of April, 1801; and this blow, coinciding with the murder of
the Czar Paul, dissolved a coalition more menacing in appearance than
in reality. The young man who succeeded to the Russian throne met with
dignity the imposing attitude of Nelson, now left in chief command;
but he had not inherited his father's fantastic ambitions, and the
material interests of Russia in that day pointed to peace with Great
Britain. The treaty, signed June 5, 1801,[350] permitted the neutral to
trade from port to port on the coast of a nation at war; but renounced,
on the part of Russia, the claim that the neutral flag covered the
enemy's goods. On the other hand Great Britain admitted that property
of a belligerent, sold _bonâ fide_ to a neutral, became neutral in
character and as such not liable to seizure; but from the operation
of this admission obtained the special exception of produce from the
hostile colonies.[351] This, Russia conceded, could not be carried
directly from the colony to the mother country, even though it had
become neutral property by a real sale; and similarly the direct trade
from the mother country to the colony was renounced. Great Britain thus
obtained an explicit acknowledgment of the Rule of 1756 from the most
formidable of the maritime powers, and strengthened her hands for the
approaching dispute with the United States. In return, she abandoned
the claim, far more injurious to Russia, to seize naval stores as
contraband of war. Four months later, hostilities between Great Britain
and France also ceased.
The maritime commercial interests, both of belligerents and neutrals,
received convincing and conspicuous illustration from this, the first
of the two sea wars growing out of the French Revolution. It was the
interest of the neutrals to step in and take up the trade necessarily
abandoned, to a greater or less degree, by the belligerents; and
it was also useful to both parties to the war that they should do
so. But it was very much less to the advantage of the more purely
maritime state than it was to its antagonist; for not only did she
need help less, but such temporary changes in the course of trade
tend to become permanent. The immediate gain may become a final and
irretrievable loss. Hence Great Britain is seen to yield readily the
restrictions of the Navigation Act, wherever it is clearly advisable
to avail herself of neutral seamen or neutral carriers; but the
concession goes no further than immediately necessary, and is always
expressly guarded as temporary. The relaxation is a purely warlike
measure, and she is perfectly consistent in refusing to allow it to
her enemies. Every slackening of the Navigation Act was a violation
in principle of the Rule of 1756,[352] which she was quite content to
have her enemy imitate; as the big boy at school offers the small one
the opportunity of returning an injury in kind. France might employ
neutrals contrary to what Great Britain claimed as the law of nations,
as the latter herself did; but there was the difference that Great
Britain could put a stop to the operations favorable to her opponent,
while France could only partially impede those that advantaged hers.
It was, therefore, clearly the policy of the British to yield nothing
to neutrals except when they could not avoid it, and then explicitly
to assert the principle, while conceding a relaxation; they thus kept
control over the neutral trade, and impeded operations that both helped
their enemy and might also supplant their own commerce. In the latter
part of the war, as the purpose of France to cripple their trade took
shape, and the exclusion of British goods from the Continent became an
evident and avowed intention, the ministry strengthened itself with
the reflection that the measure was impracticable so long as neutral
bottoms abounded; but a few months later the denial of intercourse
between hostile nations and their colonies by neutral intermediaries
was inserted in the Russian treaty. The intention to use neutrals
to the utmost extent desirable for British interests thus coincided
with the determination to stop a traffic esteemed contrary to them.
The permission to neutrals, by the orders of January, 1798, to carry
the produce of French and Dutch colonies to Great Britain, when they
were threatened with seizure if they sailed with the same for France
or Holland, illustrates both motives of action; while it betrays the
gradual shaping of the policy—which grew up over against Bonaparte's
Continental System—of forcing neutrals to make England the storehouse
and toll-gate of the world's commerce. Superficially, Great Britain
seems rather to relax toward neutrals between 1793 and 1801; but the
appearance is only superficial. The tendencies that issued in the ever
famous Orders in Council of 1807 were alive and working in 1798.
The question for British statesmen to determine, therefore, was how
far to acquiesce in the expansion of neutral trade, and where to draw
their line,—always a difficult task, dependent upon many considerations
and liable to result in inconsistencies, real or apparent. For France
the problem was less intricate. Her commerce even before the war
was chiefly in foreign hands;[353] she had therefore little cause
to fear ultimate injury by concessions. Immediate loss by neutral
competition was impossible, for the British navy left her no ships to
lose. Hence it was her interest to avail herself of neutral carriers
to the fullest extent, to recognize that the freer their operations
the better for her, and that, even could restrictions upon their
carrying for her enemy be enforced, the result would be to compel the
British people to develop further their own merchant shipping. Every
blow at a neutral was really, even though not seemingly, a blow for
Great Britain. In a general way this was seen clearly enough, and a
policy favoring neutrals was traditional in France, but the blind
passions of the Revolution overthrew it. To use the vigorous words of
a deputy: "The French people is the victim of an ill-devised scheme,
of a too blind trust in commerce-destroying, _an auxiliary measure_,
which, to be really useful, should strike only the enemy, and not
reach the navigation of neutrals and allies, and still less paralyze
the circulation and export of our agriculture and of the national
industries."[354] Such were the results of the direct action of
successive French governments, and of the indirect embarrassment caused
by the delays and inconsistencies of the executive and the tribunals.
It was thought that neutrals could be coerced by French severities
into resisting British restrictions, whether countenanced or not by
international law. But Great Britain, though a hard taskmaster, did not
so lay her burdens as to lose services which were essential to her, nor
compel a resistance that under the military conditions was hopeless;
and the series of wild measures, which culminated in the law of January
18, 1798, only frightened neutrals from French coasts, while leaving
Great Britain in full control of the sea. The year 1797 saw the lowest
depression of British trade; coincidently with the law of January 18
began a development, which, at first gradual, soon became rapid, and in
which the neutrals driven from France bore an increasing proportion.
The short peace of Amiens lasted long enough to indicate how thoroughly
Great Britain, while using neutrals, had preserved her own maritime
advantages intact. The preliminaries were signed October 1, 1801, and
war was again declared May 16, 1803; but, notwithstanding the delays
in paying off the ships of war, and the maintenance of an unusually
large number of seamen in the peace establishment, the neutral shipping
employed fell from twenty-eight per cent, in 1801, to eighteen and a
half per cent in 1802.
On the outbreak of the second war Napoleon reverted at once to the
commercial policy of the Convention and the Directory. On the 20th
of June, 1803, a decree was issued by him directing the confiscation
of any produce of the British colonies, and of any manufactures of
Great Britain, introduced into France. Neutral vessels arriving were
required to present a certificate from the French consul at the port
of embarkation, certifying that the cargo was in no part of British
origin. The same measure was forcibly carried out in Holland, though
nominally an independent state;[355] and the occupation of Hanover,
while dictated also by the general principle of injuring Great Britain
as much as possible, had mainly in view the closure of the Elbe and
the Weser to British commerce. Beyond this, however, Bonaparte being
then engrossed with the purpose of a direct attack by armed force upon
the British islands, the indirect hostilities upon their commercial
prosperity were, for the moment, neglected.
At the same period Great Britain began to feel that neutral rivalry was
being carried too far for her own welfare, and determined to tighten
the reins previously slackened. She obtained from Sweden in July, 1803,
a special concession, allowing her to arrest Swedish vessels laden with
naval stores for France, and to purchase the cargoes at a fair price,—a
stipulation identical with that about provisions in Jay's treaty; and
when the French occupation of Hanover excluded her ships from the Elbe
and Weser, she by a blockade of the rivers shut out neutrals also.
But it was in the West Indies, so long a fruitful source of wealth,
that the pressure of neutral competition was most heavily felt. The
utter ruin of San Domingo, and the embarrassments of the other islands
hostile to Great Britain, had in the former war combined with the
dangers of the seas to raise the price of colonial produce on the
Continent,[356] and, consequently, to give a great development to the
British growth of sugar and coffee, the transport of which was confined
by law to British vessels. The planters, the shipping business, and
the British merchants dealing with the West Indies, together with the
various commercial interests and industries connected with them, all
participated in the benefits of this traffic, which supplied over one
fourth of the imports of the kingdom, and took off besides a large
amount of manufactures. As production increased, however, and prices
lowered, the West India business began to feel keenly the competition
by the produce of the hostile islands, exported by American merchants.
Of the extent of this commerce, and of its dependence upon the
interruption, by Great Britain, of the ordinary channels for French
and Dutch trade, a few figures will give an idea. In 1792, before the
war, the United States exported to Europe 1,122,000 pounds of sugar,
and 2,136,742 of coffee; in 1796, 35,000,000 of sugar and 62,000,000
of coffee; in 1800, 82,000,000 of sugar and 47,000,000 coffee. In
1803, during the short peace, the exports fell to 20,000,000 of sugar
and 10,000,000 coffee; in 1804, a year of war, they again rose to
74,000,000 sugar, and 48,000,000 coffee. The precise destination cannot
be given; but the trade between France and her West India Islands,
carried on by American ships, amounted in 1805 to over $20,000,000, of
which only $6,000,000 were United States produce. In like manner the
trade with Holland was over $17,000,000, of which $2,000,000 were of
American origin.
Upon the return of Mr. Pitt to power, in 1804, the attempt was made
to strengthen the fabric of British commercial prosperity in the
Caribbean, by an extension of the system of free ports in the different
colonies; by means of which, and of their large merchant shipping, the
British collected in their own hands, by both authorized and contraband
traffic, so much of the carrying trade of this region, extending their
operations to the mainland as well as throughout the islands. More,
however, was needed to restrain the operations of the Americans, who,
by reducing the price of coffee on the Continent, diminished the
re-exportation from Great Britain, thus affecting the revenue of the
kingdom and the profits of the planters; and who also, by acting as
carriers, interfered with the accumulations at the free ports and the
consequent employment of British ships. All the classes interested
joined in urging the government to find some relief; and the clamor was
increased by a sense of indignation at the tricks by which belligerent
rights were believed to be evaded by the Americans. The Rule of 1756
did not allow the latter to carry their cargoes direct to Europe; but,
as the trade winds compelled vessels to run to the northward until
they reached the westerly winds prevailing in the higher latitudes,
no great delay was involved in making an American port, or even in
trans-shipping the cargo to a vessel bound for Europe.[357] Great
Britain admitted that articles of hostile origin, but become neutral
property, could be carried freely to the neutral country; and, when so
imported, became part of the neutral stock and could then be freely
re-exported to a hostile state.
The question of a _bonâ fide_ importation, like all others involving
a question of intention, could be determined only by the character of
the transactions attending it; but it was held generally that actual
landing and storage, with payment of the duties, was sufficient proof,
unless rebutted by other circumstances. Early in the war following the
peace of Amiens, the British courts awoke to the fact that the duties
paid on goods so imported were simply secured by a bond, and that on
re-exportation a drawback was given, so that a very small percentage
of the nominal duties was actually paid.[358] Upon this ground a ship
was condemned in May, 1805, and great numbers of American vessels
carrying colonial produce to Europe were seized and brought into port,
as well as others proceeding from the United States to the West Indies,
with cargoes originating in the mother countries; and when, in the
opinion of the court, the duties had been only nominally paid, they
were condemned. It is hard to see the soundness of an objection to
these decisions, based on the validity of the payments; but the action
of the British government is open to severe censure in that no warning
was given of its purpose no longer to accept, as proof of importation,
the payment of duties by bond, on which drawback was given. Whether
it had known the law of the United States or not, that law had been
open to it, and ignorance of its provisions was due not to any want of
publicity, but to the carelessness of British authorities. Under the
circumstances, the first seizures were little short of robbery.
The reclamations of the United States met with little attention
during Pitt's brief second administration; but after his death, in
January, 1806, and the accession to office of Grenville and Fox,
a more conciliatory attitude was shown,—especially by the latter,
who became Minister of Foreign Affairs. Favorably inclined to the
Americans since his opposition to the policy of the Revolutionary
War, he seemed desirous of conceding their wishes; but the pressure
from without, joined to opposition within the ministry, prevented a
frank reversal of the course pursued. Instead of the Rule of 1756, Fox
obtained an Order in Council, dated May 16, 1806, placing the coast
of the Continent, from Brest to the Elbe, in a state of blockade.
The blockade, however, was only to be enforced strictly between the
mouth of the Seine and Ostend. Into ports between those two points no
neutral would be admitted on any pretext, and, if attempting to enter,
would be condemned; but on either side, neutral ships could go in and
out freely, provided they "had not been laden at any port belonging
to his Majesty's enemies, or, if departing, were not destined to any
port belonging to his Majesty's enemies." The wording of the order was
evidently framed to avoid all question as to the origin of cargoes,
upon which the Rule of 1756 hinged. Not the origin of the cargo, but
the port of lading, determined the admission of the neutral ship to the
harbors partially blockaded; and if to them, then, _a fortiori_, to all
open ports of the enemy. On the other hand, the strict blockade already
established of the Elbe and Weser was by this order partially relieved,
in the expectation that neutrals would carry British manufactures to
those northern markets. In short, the Order was a compromise, granting
something both to the mercantile interest and to the Americans, though
not conceding the full demands of either. It is at best doubtful
whether the British were able to establish an effective blockade over
the extent of coast from Brest to the Elbe, but the United States
and Napoleon had no doubts whatever about it; and it thus fell, by a
singular irony of fate, to the most liberal of the British statesmen,
the friend of the Americans and of Napoleon, as almost the last act of
his life, to fire the train which led to the Berlin and Milan decrees,
to the Orders in Council of 1807, and to the war with the United States
six years later.
Fox died on the 13th of September, 1806, and was succeeded as Minister
of Foreign Affairs by Lord Howick. On the 25th of the same month the
partial restrictions still imposed on the Elbe and the Weser were
removed; so that neutral ships, even though from the ports of an enemy
of Great Britain, were able to enter. In the mean time, war had broken
out between France and Prussia; the battle of Jena was fought October
14, and on the 26th Napoleon entered Berlin. The battle of Trafalgar,
a twelvemonth before, had shattered all his confidence in the French
navy and destroyed his hopes of directly invading Great Britain. On
the other hand the short campaign of 1805 had overthrown the Austrian
power, and that of 1806 had just laid Prussia at his feet. The dream of
reducing Great Britain by the destruction of her commercial prosperity,
long floating in his mind, now became tangible, and was formulated
into the phrase that he "would conquer the sea by the land." Two of
the great military monarchies were already prostrate. Spain, Holland,
Italy, and the smaller German states were vassals, more or less
unwilling, but completely under his control; there seemed no reason to
doubt that he could impose his will on the Continent and force it to
close every port to British trade. On the 21st of November, 1806, the
emperor issued the famous Berlin Decree; and then, having taken the
first in the series of fated steps which led to his ruin, he turned
to the eastward and plunged with his army into the rigors of a Polish
winter to fulfil his destiny.