10, 18 October 1810) introduced a new pattern of blockade which in
many ways contradicted the old System. The July decree allowed France
to trade with England while forbidding the Allies to do so; the first
August decree stipulated that the entire maritime trade of the Empire was
under his personal direction and that no ship could leave the Continent
for a foreign port without a licence signed by him; the second August
decree set out duties on colonial products such that the consumer paid
the same as under the old smuggling regime, but the French Treasury
not the smugglers made the profit; and the October decrees ordered all
trading in colonial products in the Empire outside France to cease as it
competed with French trade.
The St-Cloud, Trianon and Fontainebleau decrees had a threefold
aim: to tighten the noose on the illicit trade in British goods and make
London realize it could nevt:r win the economic war; to strengthen the
privileged position of French manufacturing by raising the imperial and
Italian customs tariff and thus to boost French industry by giving it a
monopoly in industrial production and the distribution of colonial goods;
and to destroy the point of smuggling by issuing licences for the export
and import of necessary raw materials. Faced with a trade he could not
stop, Napoleon in effect turned smuggler himself. French trade with
England was de facto legalized by the imposition of tariffs as high as
4<r-5o% - the equivalent of smugglers' premiums in the past.
The real question was whether allowing colonial goods to enter France
from England while British manufactures were excluded would correct
the kinks in the Continental System. But Napoleon's attempt at
reforming a rickety blockade simply made everything worse. German
traders were ruined at a stroke, creating an underground spirit of hatred
and revenge. To enforce his monopoly Napoleon seized and destroyed
huge stocks of contraband in Germany, Holland and Italy, ruffling
national sensibilities in those lands. Authorizing the sale of prizes seized
by privateers and corsairs together with a huge stockpile of confiscated
goods in Holland weakened the market for French manufactures in the
short term. The licensing system, which among other benefits was
supposed to embroil the U.S.A. in conflict with Britain by accentuating
American anger with the Royal Navy's searches and seizures, actually
helped the United Kingdom by providing badly-needed wheat at a time
of dearth; the war between Britain and the U.S.A. was provoked too late
-in 1812. Meanwhile the 1810 decrees triggered a grave economic crisis
in France. As for the efficacy of licences to deal with smuggling, the main
effect of the 1810 decrees was to force contraband farther east, with the
Danube taking the place of the Rhine.
marcin
(Marcin)
#1