1806
The Continental system--General indignation excited by it--Sale of licences by the French Government--Custom-house system at Hamburg--My letter to the Emperor--Cause of the rupture with Russia--Bernadotte's visit to me--Trial by court-martial for the purchase of a sugar-loaf--Davoust and the captain "rapporteur"--Influence of the Continental system on Napoleon's fall.
I have a few remarks to make on the famous Continental system, which was a subject of such engrossing interest. I had, perhaps, better opportunities than any other person of observing the fraud and estimating the fatal consequences of this system. It took its rise during the war in 1806, and was brought into existence by a decree; dated from Berlin.
The project was conceived by weak counsellors, who; perceiving the Emperor's just indignation at the duplicity of England, her repugnance to enter, into negotiations with him, and her constant endeavours to raise enemies against France, prevailed upon him to issue the decree, which I could only regard as an act of madness and tyranny. It was not a decree, but fleets, that were wanting. Without a navy it was ridiculous to declare the British Isles in a state of blockade, whilst the English fleets were in fact blockading all the French ports. This declaration was, however, made in the Berlin Decree. This is what was called the Continental system! which, in plain terms, was nothing but a system of fraud and pillage.
One can now scarcely conceive how Europe could for a single day endure that fiscal tyranny which extorted exorbitant prices for articles which the habits of three centuries had rendered indispensable to the poor as well as to the rich. So little of truth is there in the pretence that this system had for its sole and exclusive object to prevent the sale of English goods, that licences for their disposal were procured at a high price by whoever was rich enough to pay for them. The number and quality of the articles exported from France were extravagantly exaggerated. It was, indeed, necessary to take out some of the articles is compliance with the Emperor's wishes, but they were only thrown into the sea. And yet no one had the honesty to tell the Emperor that England sold on the continent but bought scarcely anything. The speculation in licences was carried to a scandalous extent only to enrich a few, and to satisfy the short-sighted views of the contrivers of the system.
This system proves what is written in the annals of the human heart and mind, that the cupidity of the one is insatiable, and the errors of the other incorrigible. Of this I will cite an example, though it refers to a period posterior to the origin of the Continental system. In Hamburg, in 1811, under Davoust's government, a poor man had well-nigh been shot for having introduced into the department of the Elbe a small loaf of sugar for the use of his family, while at the same moment Napoleon was perhaps signing a licence for the importation of a million of sugar- loaves.
--[In this same year (1811) Murat, as King of Naples, not only winked at the infringement of the Continental system, but almost openly broke the law himself. His troops in Calabria and all round his immense line sea coast, carried on an active trade with Sicilian and English smugglers. This was so much the case that an officer never set out from Naples to join, without, being, requested by his wife, his relations or friends, to bring them some English muslins, some sugar and coffee, together with a few needles, pen-knives, and razors. Some of the Neapolitan officers embarked in really large commercial operations, going shares with the custom house people who were there to enforce the law, and making their soldiers load and unload the contraband vessels. The Comte de -----, a French officer on Murat's staff, was very noble, but very poor, and excessively extravagant. After making several vain efforts to set him up in the world, the King told him one day he would give him the command of the troops round the Gulf of Salerno; adding that the devil was in it if he could not make a fortune in such a capital smuggling district, in a couple of years.-- The Count took the hint, and did make a fortune.--Editor 1836 edition.
Smuggling on a small scale was punished with death, whilst the Government themselves carried it on extensively. The same cause filled the Treasury with money, and the prisons with victims:
The custom-house laws of this period, which waged open war against rhubarb, and armed the coasts of the Continent against the introduction of senna, did not save the Continental system from destruction. Ridicule attended the installation of the odious prevotal courts. The president of the Prevotal Court at Hamburg, who was a Frenchman, delivered an address, in which he endeavoured to prove that in the time of the Ptolemies there had existed extraordinary fiscal tribunals, and that it was to those Egypt owed her prosperity. Terror was thus introduced by the most absurd folly. The ordinary customhouse officers, formerly so much abhorred in Hamburg, declared with reason that they would soon be regretted, and than the difference between them and the prevotal courts would soon be felt. Bonaparte's counsellors led him to commit the folly of requiring that a ship which had obtained a licence should export merchandise equivalent to that of the colonial produce to be imported under the authority of the licence. What was the consequence? The speculators bought at a low price old stores of silk-which change of fashion had made completely unsaleable, and as those articles were prohibited in England they were thrown into the sea without their loss being felt. The profits of the speculation made ample amends for the sacrifice. The Continental system was worthy only of the ages of ignorance and barbarism, and had it been admissible in theory, was impracticable in application.
