But while the cost of articles imported from the continent of Europe was enhanced by the difficulty of communication, and the circuitous routes it often became necessary to adopt, similar causes raised the price of colonial produce, and of some descriptions of British manufactures, to a still greater proportionate height on the continent, so that the severity with which the decrees of the enemy were enforced operated more directly against imports from England than against exports to that country, and many curious instances besides those we have just mentioned are given of the extraordinary rates paid for freight.[1]
Ingenuity of merchants in shipping goods. Among the various means devised by the ingenuity and enterprise of adventurers to elude and overcome the obstacles presented by the decrees of the enemy, one in particular, which was resorted to on an extensive scale, deserves mention. Several vessels laden with sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton-twist, and other valuable commodities were despatched from England at very high rates of freight and insurance to Saloniki, in European Turkey. Refined sugar and other goods were packed in boxes made at a considerable additional expense, so that each package should not
- [Footnote: these and similar routes through the north of Europe were enormous.
Some silk likewise came through France, and the charges of conveyance from Italy to Havre, and duty of transit, amounted to nearly 100l. per bale of 240 lbs. net weight, exclusive of freight and insurance from Havre hither.]
- ↑ For instance, the charge of freight and French licence on a vessel of very little more than fifty tons burthen have been known to amount to 50,000l. for the voyage, merely from London to Calais and back. In another instance a vessel, the whole cost of which, including the outfit, did not exceed 4,000l., earned a gross freight of 80,000l. on a voyage from Bordeaux to London and back (see Tooke's 'History of Prices,' vol. i. p. 310).
