was in full march across France and Germany, to attain the
Danube. ... The Allies ... had projected four separate and
ill-combined attacks; the first on Hanover and Holland by a
Russian and British force; the second, on Lower Italy by a
similar body; the third, by a great Austrian army on Upper
Italy; and the fourth, by a United Austrian and Russian army,
moving across Southern Germany to the Rhine. ... By this time,
the Austrian Mack had drawn close to the Inn, in order to
compel Bavaria to join the Allies, and was even making his way
to the Iller, but his army was far distant from that of the
Russian chief, Kutusoff, and still further from that of
Buxhöwden, the one in Galicia, the other in Poland. ...
Napoleon had seized this position of affairs, with the
comprehensive knowledge of the theatre of war, and the skill
of arranging armies upon it, in which he has no equals among
modern captains. He opposed Masséna to the Archdukes, with a
much weaker force, confident that his great lieutenant could
hold them in check. He neglected the attacks from the North
Sea, and the South; but he resolved to strike down Mack, in
overwhelming strength, should he advance without his Russian
supports. ... The great mass of the Grand Army had reached the
Main and Rhine by the last week of September. The left wing,
joined by the Bavarian forces, and commanded by Bernadotte and
Marmont, had marched from Hanover and Holland, and was around
Würtzburg; the centre, the corps of Soult, and Davoust, moved
from the channel, was at Spire and Mannheim, and the right
wing, formed of the corps of Ney and Lannes, with the Imperial
Guard, and the horse of Murat, filled the region between
Carlsruhe and Strasburg, the extreme right under Augereau,
which had advanced from Brittany, being still behind but
drawing towards Huningen. By this time Mack was upon the
Iller, holding the fortress of Ulm on the upper Danube, and
extending his forces thence to Memmingen. ... By the first
days of October the great French masses ... were in full march
from the Rhine to the Main, across Würtemberg and the
Franconian plains; and cavalry filled the approaches to the
Black Forest, in order to deceive and perplex Mack. ... The
Danube ere long was reached and crossed, at Donauwörth,
Ingolstadt, and other points; and Napoleon already stood on
the rear of his enemy, interposing between him and Vienna, and
cut him off from the Russians, even now distant. The net was
quickly drawn round the ill-fated Mack. ... By the third week
of October, the Grand Army had encompassed the Austrians on
every side, and Napoleon held his quarry in his grasp. Mack
... had not the heart to strike a desperate stroke, and to
risk a battle; and he capitulated at Ulm on the 19th of
October. Two divisions of his army had contrived to break out;
but one was pursued and nearly destroyed by Murat, and the
other was compelled by Augereau to lay down its arms, as it
was on its way to the hills of the Tyrol. An army of 85,000
men had thus, so to speak, been well-nigh effaced; and not
20,000 had effected their escape. France meanwhile had met a
crushing disaster on the element which England had made her
own.
{1344}
We have seen how Villeneuve had put into Cadiz, afraid to face
the hostile fleets off Brest; and how this had baffled the
project of the descent. Napoleon was indignant with his
ill-fated admiral. ... At a hint of disgrace the susceptible
Frenchman made up his mind, at any risk, to fight. By this
time Nelson had left England, and was off Cadiz with a
powerful fleet; and he actually weakened his force by four
sail-of-the-line, in order to lure his adversary out. On the
20th of October, 1805, the allied fleet was in the open sea;
it had been declared at a council of war, that a lost battle
was almost certain, so bad was the condition of many of the
crews; but Villeneuve was bent on challenging Fate; and almost
courted defeat, in his despair. ... On the morning of the
21st, the allied fleet, 33 war ships, and a number of
frigates, was off Cape Trafalgar [25 miles west of Gibraltar
on the coast of Spain], making for the Straits. ... Nelson
advanced slowly against his doomed enemy, with 27 ships and
their attendant frigates; the famous signal floated from his
mast, 'England expects every man to do his duty'; and, at
about noon, Collingwood pierced Villeneuve's centre; nearly
destroying the Santa Anna with a single broadside. Ere long
Nelson had, broken Villeneuve's line, with the Victory,
causing frightful destruction; and as other British ships came
up by degrees they relieved the leading ships from the
pressure of their foes, and completed the ruin already begun.
At about one, Nelson met his death wound, struck by a shot
from the tops of the Redoutable. ... Pierced through and
through, the shattered allied centre was soon a collection of
captured wrecks. ... Only 11 ships out of 33 escaped; and the
burning Achille, like the Orient at the Nile, added to the
grandeur and horrors of an appalling scene. Villeneuve, who
had fought most honourably in the Bucentaure, was compelled to
strike his flag before the death of Nelson. The van of the
allies that had fled at Trafalgar, was soon afterwards
captured by a British squadron. Though dearly bought by the
death of Nelson, the victory may be compared to Lepanto; and
it blotted France out as a great Power on the ocean; Napoleon
... never tried afterwards to meet England at sea. ... His
success, at this moment, had been so wonderful, that what he
called 'the loss of a few ships at sea,' seemed a trifling and
passing rebuff of fortune. ... He had discomfitted the whole
plan of the Allies; and the failure of the attack on the main
scene of the theatre had caused all the secondary attacks to
fail. ... Napoleon, throwing out detachments to protect his
flanks, had entered Vienna on the 14th of November. ... The
House of Hapsburg and its chief had fled. ... Extraordinary as
his success had been, the position of the Emperor had, in a
few days, become grave. ... Napoleon had not one hundred
thousand men in hand--apart from the bodies that covered his
flanks--to make head against his converging enemies. Always
daring, however, he resolved to attack the Allies before they
could receive aid from Prussia; and he marched from Vienna
towards the close of November; having taken careful
precautions to guard his rear. ... By this time the Allies
were around Olmütz, the Archdukes were not many marches away,
and a Prussian army was nearly ready to move. Had the Russians
and Austrians fallen back from Olmütz and effected their
junction with the Archdukes, they could, therefore, have.
opposed the French with a force more than two-fold in numbers.
... But the folly and presumption which reigned among the young
nobles surrounding the Czar--Alexander was now at the head of
his army--brought on the Coalition deserved punishment, and
pedantry had its part in an immense disaster. The force of
Napoleon appeared small, his natural line of retreat was
exposed, and a theorist in the Austrian camp persuaded the
Czar and the Austrian Emperor, who was at the head of his
troops at Olmütz, to consent to a magnificent plan of
assailing Napoleon by the well-known method of Frederick the
Great, in the Seven Years' War, of turning his right wing, by
an attack made, in the oblique order, in great force, and of
cutting him off from his base at Vienna, and driving him,
routed, into, Bohemia. This grand project on paper, which
involved a march across the front of the hostile army within
reach of the greatest of masters of war, was hailed with
exultation. ... The Allies were soon in full march from
Olmütz, and preparations were made for the decisive movement
in the night of the 1st December, 1805. Napoleon had watched
the reckless false step being made by his foes with unfeigned
delight; 'that army is mine,' he proudly exclaimed. ... The
sun of Austerlitz rose on the 2nd, the light of victory often
invoked by Napoleon. ... The dawn of the winter's day revealed
three large columns, succeeded by a fourth at no great
distance, toiling through a tract of marshes and frozen lakes,
to outflank Napoleon's right on the Goldbach, the allied
centre, on the tableland of Prätzen, immediately before the
French front, having been dangerously weakened by this great
turning movement. The assailants were opposed by a small force
only, under Davoust, one of the best of the marshals. ... Ere
long Napoleon, who, like a beast of prey, had reserved his
strength until it was time to spring, launched Soult in force
against the Russian and Austrian centre, enfeebled by the
detachment against the French right and exposed to the whole
weight of Napoleon's attacks; and Prätzen was stormed after a
fierce struggle, in which Bernadotte gave the required aid to
Soult. The allied centre was thus rent asunder. Lannes
meanwhile had defeated the allied right. ... Napoleon now
turned with terrible energy and in overwhelming strength
against the four columns, that had assailed his right, but had
begun to retreat. His victorious centre was aided by his
right, now set free; the Russians and Austrians were struck
with panic, a horrible scene of destruction followed, the
flying troops were slain or captured in thousands; and
multitudes perished, engulfed in the lakes, the French
artillery shattering their icy surface. The rout was decisive,
complete, and appalling; about 80,000 of the Allies were
engaged; they lost all their guns and nearly half their
numbers, and the remains of their army were a worthless wreck.
Napoleon had only 60,000 men in the fight. ... The memorable
campaign of 1805 is, perhaps, the grandest of Napoleon's
exploits in war."
_W. O'C. Morris,
Napoleon,
chapter 7._
ALSO IN:
_A. Thiers,
History of the Consulate and Empire,
book 22 (volume 2)._
_R. Southey,
Life of Nelson,
chapters 8-9 (volume 2)._
_W. C. Russell,
Nelson and the Naval Supremacy of England,
chapters 17-20._
_Lord Nelson,
Dispatches and Letters,
volumes 6-7._
_Capt. E. J. de la Gravière,
Sketches of the last Naval War,
part 6 (volume 2)._
_C. Adams,
Great Campaigns in Europe, from 1796 to 1870,
chapter 3._
_Baron de Marbot,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapters 20-23._
_A. T. Mahan,
Influences of Sea Power upon the French Revolution,
chapters 15-16 (volume 2)._
{1345}
FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (December-August).
The Peace of Presburg.
Humiliation of Austria.
Formation of the Confederation of the Rhine.
Extinction of the Holy Roman Empire.
The goading of Prussia to war.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806;
and 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST).
FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (December-September).
Dethronement of the dynasty of Naples.
Bestowal of the crown upon Joseph Bonaparte.
The treaty of Presburg was "immediately followed by a measure
hitherto unprecedented in European history--the pronouncing a
sentence of dethronement against an independent, sovereign,
for no other cause than his having contemplated hostilities
against the French Emperor; On the 26th December [1805] a
menacing proclamation proceeded from Presburg ... which
evidently bore marks of Napoleon's composition, against the
house of Naples. The conqueror announced that Marshal St. Cyr
would advance by rapid strides to Naples, 'to punish the
treason of a criminal queen, and precipitate her from the
throne. We have pardoned that infatuated king, who thrice has
done everything to ruin himself. Shall we pardon him a fourth
time? ... No! The dynasty of Naples has ceased to reign--its
existence is incompatible with the repose of Europe and the
honour of my crown.' ... The ominous announcement, made from
the depths of Moravia, that the dynasty of Naples had ceased
to reign, was not long allowed to remain a dead letter.
Massena was busily employed, in January, in collecting his
forces in the centre of Italy, and before the end of that
month 50,000 men, under the command of Joseph Buonaparte, had
crossed the Pontifical States and entered the Neapolitan
territory in three columns, which marched on Gaeta, Capua, and
Itri. Resistance was impossible; the feeble Russian and
English forces which had disembarked to support the Italian
levies, finding the whole weight of the war likely to be
directed against them, withdrew to Sicily; the court,
thunderstruck by the menacing proclamation of 27th December,
speedily followed their example. ... In vain the intrepid
Queen Caroline, who still remained at Naples, armed the
lazzaroni, and sought to infuse into the troops a portion of
her own indomitable courage; she was seconded by none; Capua
opened its gates; Gaeta was invested; the Campagna filled with
the invaders; she, vanquished but not subdued, compelled to
yield to necessity, followed her timid consort to Sicily; and,
on the 15th February, Naples beheld its future sovereign,
Joseph Buonaparte, enter its walls. ... During the first
tumult of invasion, the peasantry of Calabria ... submitted to
the enemy. ... But the protraction of the siege of Gaeta,
which occupied Massena with the principal army of the French,
gave them time to recover from their consternation. ... A
general insurrection took place in the beginning of March, and
the peasants stood firm in more than one position; but they
were unable to withstand the shock of the veterans of France,
and in a decisive action in the plain of Campo-Tenese their
tumultuary levies, though 15,000 strong, were entirely
dispersed. The victorious Reynier penetrated even to Reggio,
and the standards of Napoleon waved on its towers, in sight of
the English videtts on the shores of Sicily. When hostilities
had subsided, Joseph repaired in person to the theatre of war.
... He received at Savigliano, the principal town of the
province, the decree, by which Napoleon created him king of
the two Sicilies. By so doing, however, he was declared not to
lose his contingent right of succession to the throne of
France; but the two crowns were never to be united."
_Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 40, section 150,
and chapter 42, sections 21-23,(volume 9)._
"Joseph's tenure of his new dominion was yet incomplete. The
fortress of Gaeta still held out, ... and the British in
Sicily (who had already taken the Isle of Capri, close to the
capital) sent 5,000 men to their aid under Sir John Stuart,
who encountered at Maida (July 6) a French corps of 7.500,
under Reynier. The battle presented one of the rare instances
in which French and British troops have actually crossed
bayonets; but French enthusiasm sank before British
intrepidity, and the enemy were driven from the field with the
loss of half their number. The victory of Maida had a
prodigious moral effect in raising the spirits and
self-confidence of the British soldiery; but its immediate
results were less considerable. The French were indeed driven
from Calabria, but the fall of Gaeta (July 18th), after the
loss of its brave governor, the Prince of Hesse-Philipsthal,
released the main army under Massena: the British exposed to
be attacked by overwhelming numbers, re-embarked (September 5)
for Palermo, and the Calabrian insurrection was suppressed with
great bloodshed. But an amnesty was at length ... published by
Joseph, who devoted himself with great zeal and admirable
judgment to heal the wounds of his distracted kingdom."
_Epitome of Alison's History of Europe,
section 398._
ALSO IN:
_P. Colletta,
History of the Kingdom of Naples,
book 5, chapter 4, and book 6, chapters 1-3._
_C. Botta,
Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon,
chapter 4._
FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (January-October).
Napoleon's triumphant return to Paris.
Death of Pitt.
Peace negotiations with England.
King making and prince making by the Corsican Cæsar.
ON the 27th of December, the day after the signing of the
Treaty of Presburg, Napoleon left Vienna for Paris. "En route
for Paris he remained a week at Munich to be present at the
marriage of Eugene Beauharnais to the Princess Augusta,
daughter of the King of Bavaria. Josephine joined him, and the
whole time was passed in fêtes and rejoicings. On this
occasion he proclaimed Eugene his adopted son, and, in default
of issue of his own, his successor in the kingdom of Italy.
Accompanied by Josephine, Napoleon re-entered Paris on the
26th of January, 1806, amidst the most enthusiastic
acclamations. The national vanity was raised to the highest
pitch by the glory and extent of territory he had acquired.
The Senate at a solemn audience besought him to accept the
title of 'the Great'; and public rejoicings lasting many days
attested his popularity. An important political event in
England opened new views of security and peace to the empire,
William Pitt, the implacable enemy of the Revolution, had died
on the 23rd of January, at the early age of 47; and the
Government was entrusted to the hands of his great opponent,
Charles James Fox.
{1346}
The disastrous results of the war of which Pitt had been the
mainstay probably hastened his death. After the capitulation
of Ulm he never rallied. The well-known friendship of Fox for
Napoleon, added to his avowed principles, afforded the
strongest hopes that England and France were at length
destined to cement the peace of the world by entering into
friendly relations. Aided by Talleyrand, who earnestly
counselled peace, Napoleon made overtures to the English
Government through Lord Yarmouth, who was among the détenus.
He offered to yield the long-contested point of
Malta--consenting to the continued possession of that island,
the Cape of Good Hope, and other conquests in the East and
West Indies by Great Britain, and proposing generally that the
treaty should be conducted on the uti possidetis principle:
that is, allowing each party to retain whatever it had
acquired in the course of the war. Turkey acknowledged
Napoleon as Emperor and entered into amicable relations with
the French nation; and what was still more important, Russia
signed a treaty of peace in July, influenced by the pacific
inclinations of the English Minister. Napoleon resolved to
surround his throne with an order of nobles, and to place
members of his family on the thrones of the conquered
countries adjoining France in order that they might become
parts of his system and co-operate in his plans. Two decrees
of the 31st of March declared Joseph Bonaparte King of Naples,
and Murat Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves. Louis Bonaparte was
made King of Holland a few months afterwards, and Jerome King
of Westphalia in the following year. The Princess Pauline
received the principality of Guastalla, and Talleyrand,
Bernadotte, and Berthier those of Benevento, Ponte-Corvo, and
Neufchâtel. Fifteen dukedoms were created and bestowed on the
most distinguished statesmen and generals of the empire, each
with an income amounting to a fifteenth part of the revenue of
the province attached to it. These became grand fiefs of the
empire. Cambacérès and Lebrun were made Dukes of Parma and
Placenza; Savary, Duke of Rovigo; Junot, of Abrantes; Lannes,
of Montebello, &c. The manners of some of these Republican
soldiers were ill adapted to courtly forms, and afforded
amusement to the members of the ancient and legitimate order.
... Napoleon's desire to conciliate and form alliances with
the established dynasties and aristocracies of Europe kept
pace with his daring encroachments on their hitherto exclusive
dignity. Besides the marriage of Eugene Beauharnais to a
Princess of Bavaria, an alliance was concluded between the
hereditary Prince of Baden and Mademoiselle Stephanie
Beauharnais, a niece of the Empress. The old French noblesse
were also encouraged to appear at the Tuileries. During the
Emperor's visit at Munich the Republican calendar was
abolished and the usual mode of computing time restored in
France. ... The negotiations with England went on tardily, and
the news of Fox's alarming state of health excited the gravest
fears in the French Government. Lord Lauderdale arrived in
Paris, on the part of England, in the month of August; but
difficulties were continually started, and before anything was
decided the death of Fox gave the finishing blow to all hope
of peace. Lord Lauderdale demanded his passports and left
Paris in October. Napoleon wished to add Sicily to his
brother's new kingdom of Naples; but British ships were able
to protect the King and Queen of Naples in that insular
position, and the English Government refused to desert their
allies on this occasion or to consent to any compensation or
adjustment offered. On this point principally turned the
failure of the attempt at peace as far as can be discovered
from the account of the negotiations."
_R. H. Horne,
History of Napoleon,
chapter 26._
ALSO IN:
_Madame de Rémusat,
Memoirs,
chapters 16-21 (volume 2)._
_Duke of Rovigo,
Memoirs,
volume 1, part 2, chapters 18-21._
_P. Lanfrey,
History of Napoleon,
volume 2, chapter 15._
FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (October).
The subjugation of Prussia at Jena.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER).
FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1807.
Napoleon's campaign against the Russians.
Eylau and Friedland.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1807;
and 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).
FRANCE: A.D. 1806-1810.
Commercial warfare with England.
British Orders in Council and Napoleon's Berlin and Milan
Decrees.
The "Continental System."
"As the war advanced, after the Peace of Amiens, the neutrals
became bolder and more aggressive. "American ships were
constantly arriving at Dutch and French ports with sugar,
coffee, and other productions of the French and Spanish West
Indies. And East India goods were imported by them into Spain,
Holland, and France. ... By the rivers and canals of Germany
and Flanders goods were floated into the warehouses of the
enemy, or circulated far the supply of his customers in
neutral countries. ... It was a general complaint, therefore,
that the enemy carried on colonial commerce under the neutral
flag, cheaply as well as safely; that he was enabled not only
to elude British hostilities, but to rival British merchants
and planters in the European markets; that by the same means
the hostile treasuries were filled with a copious stream of
revenue; and that by this licentious use of the neutral flag,
the enemy was enabled to employ his whole military marine for
purposes of offensive war, without being obliged to maintain a
squadron or a ship for the defence of his colonial ports. ...
Such complaints made against neutral states found a powerful
exposition in a work entitled 'War in Disguise and the Frauds
of the Neutral Flag,' supposed to have been written by Mr.
James Stephen, the real author of the orders in Council. The
British Government did not see its way at once to proceed in
the direction of prohibiting to neutral ships the colonial
trade, which they had enjoyed for a considerable time; but the
first step was taken to paralyse the resources of the enemy,
and to restrict the trade of neutrals, by the issue of an
order in Council in May 1806, declaring that all the coasts,
ports, and rivers from the Elbe to Brest should be considered
blockaded, though the only portion of those coasts rigorously
blockaded was that included between the Ostend and the mouth
of the Seine, in the ports of which preparations were made for
the invasion of England. The northern ports of Germany and
Holland were left partly open, and the navigation of the
Baltic altogether free. Napoleon, then in the zenith of his
power, saw, in this order in Council, a fresh act of
wantonness, and he met it by the issue of the Berlin decree of
November 21, 1806. In that document, remarkable for its
boldness and vigour, Napoleon charged England with having set
at nought the dictates of international law, with having made
prisoners of war of private individuals, and with having taken
the crews out of merchant ships.
{1347}
He charged this country with having captured private property
at sea extended to commercial parts the restrictions of
blockade applicable only to fortified places, declared as
blockaded places which were not invested by naval forces, and
abused the right of blockade in order to benefit her own trade
at the expense of the commerce of Continental states. He
asserted the right of combating the enemy with the same arms
used against himself, especially when such enemy ignored all
ideas of justice and every liberal sentiment which
civilisation imposes. He announced his resolution to apply to
England the same usages which she had established in her
maritime legislation. He laid dawn the principles which France
was resolved to act upon until England should recognise that
the rights of war are the same on land as on sea. ... And upon
these premises the decree ordered,
1st, That the British islands should be declared in a state
of blockade.
2nd, That all commerce and correspondence with the British
islands should be prohibited; and that letters addressed to
England or Englishmen, written in the English language,
should be detained and taken.
3rd, That every British subject found in a country occupied
by French troops, or by those of their allies, should be
made a prisoner of war.
4th, That all merchandise and property belonging to British
subjects should be deemed a good prize.
5th, That all commerce in English merchandise should be
prohibited, and that all merchandise belonging to England
or her colonies, and of British manufacture, should be
deemed a good prize. And
6th, That no vessel coming direct from England or her
colonies be allowed to enter any French port, or any port
subject to French authority; and that every vessel which,
by means of a false declaration, should evade such
regulations, should at once be captured.
The British Government lost no time in retaliating against
France far so bald a course; and, on January 7, 1807, an order
in Council was issued, which, after reference to the orders
issued by France, enjoined that no vessel should be allowed to
trade from one enemy's port to another, or from one port to
another of a French ally's coast shut against English vessels;
and ordered the commanders of the ships of war and privateers
to warn every neutral vessel coming from any such port, and
destined to another such port, to discontinue her voyage, and
that any vessel, after being so warned, which should be found
proceeding to another such port should be captured and
considered as lawful prize. This order in Council having
reached Napoleon at Warsaw, he immediately ordered the
confiscation of all English merchandise and colonial produce
found in the Hanseatic Towns. ... But Britain, in return, went
a step further, and, by order in Council of November 11, 1807,
declared all the ports and places of France, and those of her
allies, and of all countries where the English flag was
excluded, even though they were not at war with Britain,
should be placed under the same restrictions for commerce and
navigation as if they were blockaded, and consequently that
ships destined to those ports should be liable to the visit of
British cruisers at a British station, and there subjected to
a tax to be imposed by the British Parliament. Napoleon was at
Milan when this order in Council was issued, and forthwith, on
December 17, the famous decree appeared, by which he imposed
on neutrals just the contrary of what was prescribed to them
by England, and further declared that every vessel, of
whatever nation, that submitted to the order in Council of
November 11, should by that very act become denationalised,
considered as British property, and condemned as a good prize.
The decree placed the British islands in a state of blockade,
and ordered that every ship, of whatever nation, and with
whatever cargo, proceeding from English ports or English
colonies to countries occupied by English troops, or going to
England, should be a good prize. This England answered by the
order in Council of April 26, 1809, which revoked the order of
1807 as regards America, but confirmed the blockade of all the
parts of France and Holland, their colonies and dependencies.
And then France, still further incensed against England,
issued the tariff of Trianon, dated August 5, 1810, completed
by the decree of St. Cloud of September 12, and of
Fontainebleau of October 19, which went the length of ordering
the seizure and burning of all British goods found in France,
Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain, and in every place occupied by
French troops. ... The princes of the Rhenish Confederation
hastened to execute it, same for the purpose of enriching
themselves by the wicked deed, same out of hatred towards the
English, and some to show their devotion towards their master.
From Carlsruhe to Munich, from Cassel to Dresden and Hamburg,
everywhere, bonfires were made of English goods. And so
exacting were the French that when Frankfort exhibited the
least hesitation in carrying out the decree, French troops
were sent to execute the order. By means such as these [known
as the Continental System of Napoleon] the commerce of the
world was greatly deranged, if not destroyed altogether, and
none suffered more from them than England herself."
_L. Levi,
History of British Commerce,
part 2, chapter 4
(with appended text of Orders and Decrees)._