British Measures (1793-1802)

The measures adopted at the beginning of the maritime blockade in 1793 exhibit marked resemblances to the corresponding measures adopted during the recent World War, and are therefore of especial interest and importance. As early as February 14, that is to say, a fortnight after the outbreak of the war, Great Britain authorized the capture of all vessels and goods belonging to France; and in the following month she proceeded to work. On April 4 she proclaimed all her most advanced principles concerning the law of war at sea, and on June 8 she introduced the most famous of her measures, namely, the instructions of 1793, whereby fleet commanders and privateers were authorized 'to stop and detain all vessels loaded wholly or in part with corn, flour, or meal, bound to any port in France or any port occupied by the armies of France', with the understanding that the British government would purchase the cargo with the proper allowances for freight, called 'pre-emption'. This measure took the form of a plan to starve out France. Count Axel von Fersen, the chivalrous young Swedish nobleman who, as is well known, was one of the most active allies of the French émigrés, had emphasized this, as early as April 29, in a letter addressed to the Regent of Sweden, Charles Duke of Södermanland; and in a notification of the measure addressed to the Baltic powers, especially one to Denmark in July, Great Britain justified her June instructions in a manner very similar to that in which the policy of starving out Germany was justified during the recent war. The notification declared that the war was being conducted in a manner contrary to the principles of international law, that France had no recognized government, and that the corn trade had been taken over by the French authorities themselves, that is to say, had become an act of the enemy's own government; and, finally, the blockade against imports was represented purely as an important means of forcing the enemy to make peace. Lars von Engeström hit the mark in describing the tendencies of that time—as also those of the World War—when he wrote that the struggle 'had passed into a kind of political war of religion'.

A genuine blockade of the importation of foodstuffs into France might therefore have been expected, that is, a 'starving-out scheme' similar to that of the World War. In a way such a plan might even have been made to harmonize fairly well with the continental economic policy of that time, at least until the French Revolution; for as a matter of fact, the prevailing note on the subject of foodstuffs continued to be the pre-mercantilist tendency to prevent exports, rather than the mercantilist one to encourage domestic production by hampering imports and facilitating exports. As has been already mentioned, however, Pitt's justification for the seizures was not based on this notion, but on Britain's own quite temporary need of foodstuffs—according to Lars von Engeström's statement; and evidence of how deeply rooted the notion of the inexpediency of preventing imports to the enemy was is furnished by the fact that the ensuing developments did not at all follow along the lines which were indicated in the first measures. Only fourteen months afterwards, on August 18, 1794, the previously cited article in the June instructions of 1793 was repealed, and this meant that the importation of corn into France was again permitted. It is true that in the following April a new attempt was made to put the instructions of 1793 into force, but this was done chiefly with the object of forcing the United States into a ratification of the celebrated Jay Treaty of 1794. That, however, wound up the whole of this episode, so that throughout the entire period of the twenty years that still remained before Europe obtained a lasting peace, not a single attempt at starving out France was made, so far as we know, nor were there any further efforts to stop her imports on the part of the power that had the command of the sea. Against only one small country, Norway, did Great Britain occasionally make use of her ability to prevent the introduction of supplies, for reasons which will be discussed in due time.

In contrast with these sporadic attempts to prevent importation into France, the regulation of the trade with the French and Spanish colonies continued throughout the war, that is, until the Peace of Amiens in 1802; and this became the starting-point of the events that were to take place during the period of the Continental System proper. Here, too, there was a certain amount of wavering on the part of Great Britain, but the general principles were maintained with a consistency wholly different from that shown in the other case. A beginning was made with the celebrated instructions of November 6, 1793, which aroused the particular animosity of the neutrals, especially the United States, for the reason that they prescribed the capture of all vessels carrying the products of the French colonies or conveying supplies to them. Shortly afterwards, however, these draconic orders were revoked as a concession to the United States, and their place was taken by the new instructions of January 8, 1794. These restricted the order concerning capture to vessels proceeding directly from the West Indian colonies of the enemy to a European port; and this, in turn, opened up the possibility of a so-called 'circuitous voyage' via some neutral extra-European port, that is to say, primarily an American port, but also possibly a Danish or Swedish colonial port. Nevertheless, it was provided that the products of enemy colonies should have become neutral property in order to be loaded, and that blockade-running vessels, as well as vessels conveying naval stores or munitions of war to the enemy colonies, would be liable to capture. These regulations were further modified by the new instructions of January, 1798, which both abolished the requirement that the colonial goods should have become neutral property and also, and above all, permitted direct traffic to a European port, that is, a port belonging to the British Empire or to the home land of the neutral vessel. This stipulation in favour of a British port is of especial interest in that it furnishes evidence of the British design to attract to Great Britain the trade even in the products of enemy colonies. As Admiral Mahan has rightly remarked, it was an outcome of the effort characteristic of the old colonial system to create in the home country a staple or entrepôt for colonial goods. In point of fact, the instructions of 1798 remained in force until the termination of the revolutionary wars in 1802.

In comparison with the treatment of neutral shipping in the recent war, these orders do not present a very strict appearance; for at the present time the belligerent that is dominant on the seas tries to cut off practically every sort of neutral intercourse with the enemy over such waters as it commands and even, to some extent, over other waters. But one must not overlook the fact that privateering, which it was in many ways almost impossible to distinguish from piracy pure and simple, and even the private interests of the crews of war-ships in effecting captures, brought about an arbitrariness and a brutality in the treatment of maritime commerce which is unknown to-day. This has been copiously illustrated by the recently deceased Danish historian, Professor Edvard Holm, whose account undeniably gives one the impression that the trials and troubles of neutral trade, even during the first years of the revolutionary wars, in practice exceeded even those of the present time, even though its chances of profit, as far as we can judge, were greater. Nevertheless, the acts of the belligerents during those first years were almost deeds of mercy in comparison with what was to come; and the new departure was the work of the new French policy. Like most of the measures of the French revolutionary governments, the measures against maritime trade were marked by a combination of violence and impotence; but they were so far explicable because the British application of the laws of war at sea rendered French navigation all but impossible. As usual, the principal sufferers in the end were the neutrals, and this time the measures of violence against them were carried to the most extreme limit that had yet been reached.