Napoleon's skill and duplicity.
These extraordinary measures having been long
conceived by Napoleon, were now, in the full tide of
his continental victories, launched against the commerce
of England. It will be seen by the calm
perusal of this famous but outrageous document,
how well Napoleon knew how to frame his edicts in
a form to captivate the multitude, to mask his ulterior
objects under the appearance of liberty, and to
assume the character of a redresser of the wrongs
of nations oppressed by the alleged malignity of
England. But his staunchest encomiasts have
scarcely dared to justify this atrocious decree, or to
support his pretence that it was merely issued to
compel the English to renounce the supremacy over
the ocean, or to intimidate the agents connected
with English shipping, and principally the merchants
of the Hanseatic towns, whom he stigmatised as
"smugglers by profession," as they had contrived,
in spite of the raging of hostilities, as all merchants
will contrive, to pour into the continent every description
of merchandise.[1]
M. Thiers states[2] that Talleyrand knew nothing of this decree until it was made public, although
- ↑ Alison, vol. xi., p. 105, in a note, mentions a striking instance of how the Berlin decree was opposed even to Napoleon's own interests. Shortly after its issue there arrived at Hamburg an urgent order for the immediate delivery of a very large amount of clothing for his army; but the resources of the Hanse Towns were so totally unable to provide within the specified time the requisite supply, that Bourrienne, the French diplomatic agent, after trying in vain every other expedient, was obliged to contract for it with English houses. Thus while the Emperor was boasting that by the continental system he had excluded British goods from the continent, 50,000 to 60,000 of his half-naked soldiers were, in the depth of winter, clothed by the manufacturers of Halifax, Leeds, and other English towns.
- ↑ M. Thiers' 'Consulat et l'Empire,' vii. 222.
