exceed about two hundredweight. These, when landed, were conveyed on mules and pack-horses through Servia and Hungary to Vienna, for the purpose of being distributed over Germany, and sometimes even into France. The articles sold at enormously high prices. Sugar fetched 5s. to 6s. per lb.; coffee 7s. per lb.; indigo 18s.; and cotton 7s. and 8s. per lb.[1]
Smuggling. On the 5th September, 1807, the English made themselves masters of the small island of Heligoland (which was confirmed to them by the Treaty of Kiel, January 14th, 1814), and thence enormous quantities of British goods were smuggled into Holstein, and thence again were conveyed at a charge of 33 to 40 per cent. within the French custom-house line. This regular traffic, being well known to the imperial authorities, and sometimes connived at on account of its enormous profits, was
- ↑ As an instance in our own experience of the effect of blockades in more recent times, it may be mentioned that England obtained, during the whole of the late war with Russia, her supplies of hemp, tallow, and other Russian produce in almost as great abundance from that country as she did during peace, but at greatly enhanced prices to the British consumer. These articles, instead of being shipped in the ordinary course of commerce direct from the Baltic ports, were carried across the frontiers into Germany, or Belgium, or France, and by railway rapidly found their way to the ports of neutral countries, and thence were exported to England, so that the modern means of transit would seem not only to render in a great measure nugatory the effect of blockades, but to greatly enhance the price of all articles to the nation which establishes them. Thus, while England was very heavily taxed to maintain an effective blockade of the Russian ports, her people paid at least one hundred per cent. more for numerous articles produced in that country, articles, too, be it remembered, necessary for their existence. Would it not be advisable for English statesmen to consider if, in the interests of this country, the right of blockade, as well as the capture of private property at sea, could not now be erased from the ancient laws of nations?
