The Hanseatic League in the Early Modern Period 123
Because Russia was not ready to join the Continental Blockade, the priori-
ties of France changed one more time as the licenses proved to be especially
profitable. These were intended—in that they relaxed the blockade for a short
period—to absorb buying power in England as well as also bring money into
the French state treasury. Besides, with respect to Northern Germany, grain
exports had been considered on the occasion of a grain shortage in the British
Isles. Yet of the ninety-one licenses issued by the end of 1810, only thirty-three
ships from Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck made use of a license by the end
1810, which brought in approximately 445,000 francs from licensing fees. The
licenses were distributed between nineteen ships from Hamburg, ten from
Bremen, and ten from Lübeck. Although the council of Lübeck had recom-
mended the use of the licenses, even in the sense of a trade policy of give and
take, the exact declaration of their cargoes in advance of ordering a license
from Paris seemed too complicated to the majority of Lübeck’s citizens. By
comparison, Danzig shippers alone used more than forty French licenses in
the year 1810.39
On the whole, the Continental Blockade strengthened England’s suprem-
acy on the high seas over the long term. Therefore, it comes as no surprise
that the Continental Blockade, especially for Hamburg, had promoted English
trade rather than permanently impeding it. Thus, Great Britain became the
premier trade partner of Hamburg, which was correctly described as “the most
English city on the continent.” At the end of the eighteenth century, the French
colonial trade had, by comparison, clearly dominated Hamburg’s commerce.
Accordingly, after the re-stimulation of Hamburg’s ocean shipping in the years
following 1814, twenty to thirty ships from Hamburg sailed to London yearly,
while in France, only the old connections to Bordeaux remained intact, and
were serviced on a lower level.40
As a consequence of the Continental Blockade, Lübeck had completely lost
its function as a middleman in the exchange between East and West and in the
nineteenth century was forced to gradually grope its way back into Western
Europe from a regional base in the Baltic Sea realm. Still, the experience of
the Continental Blockade and the Napoleonic occupation appear important
for the political collaboration of the Hanseatic cities. The so-called “Hanseatic
Legion” also took part in the “liberation” from the French occupation, which
then helped the Hanseatic cities to present a collective voice at the Parisian
Peace Negotiations of 1814. The Bremen senator Johann Smidt, who after
the liberation of Bremen in November of 1813 had already represented the
39 Voeltzer, “Lübecks Wirtschaftslage,” 63f.
40 Kresse, Hamburger Handelsflotte, 72–75, 90–95.