Diminished Vigilance During the Austrian Campaign (1809)

This line of development was especially marked in 1809 when Napoleon's campaign against Austria and the Spanish uprising also made heavy demands on him and his troops, while trade under a neutral, that is to say, American flag, again became possible through the Non-intercourse Act, bringing it about that the importation of raw materials into Great Britain again became normal and the possibilities of smuggling into the Continent grew greatly. Great Britain could also now rejoice in the highest prosperity in the new trade she acquired through the Spanish uprising, as is most plainly shown by the tables given above. The British exports of cotton goods show a unique rise: manufactured goods from £12,500,000 to £18,400,000 and yarn from £470,000 to £1,020,000 ('official values', that is to say, irrespective of changes in prices). The former thus underwent an increase of nearly 50 per cent., and the latter of more than 100 per cent., as compared with the in themselves high figures of 1808.

This was not solely an effect of the possession of new markets. On the contrary, all our sources are agreed in attributing it to the diminished watchfulness on the North Sea, where the self-blockade was alleged—with some exaggeration, it is true—to have in reality ceased; and it was considered that trade was being carried on almost as in time of peace. This is made visible, indeed, by a rise in the figures for British exports to North Europe from £2,160,000 to £5,700,000 for British goods, and from £3,270,000 to no less than £8,870,000 for colonial goods. With a zeal that infallibly reminds us of the saying, 'When the cat's away the mice will play,' all Napoleon's tools on the North Sea coast took advantage of his absence in Austria to relax the bonds and to let in vessels, especially those under the American flag. As early as the middle of March 1809, King Louis of Holland declared to the Emperor that his country was 'physically unable to endure the closing of the ports' in combination with the closing of the Franco-Dutch frontier ordered by Napoleon in the previous September; and accordingly he made certain relaxations in the blockade by sea at the close of the month. When Napoleon, at the beginning of June, rescinded his September decree, his brother embraced the opportunity to rescind the order prohibiting American vessels to put in at Dutch ports. This caused Napoleon to put the barring of the frontier in force again in the middle of July; but not only the showers of abuse which Napoleon poured over his unhappy brother, but also his brother's correspondence with the Dutch ministers, show distinctly enough how smuggling was going on in Holland itself throughout the entire year.

Farther to the north smuggling through Oldenburg continued into the following year. A sudden fall in the price of cotton yarn in northern Germany was caused in February 1809, by the large stocks that the Manchester manufacturers had laid up in Heligoland; and as an example of the scope of the traffic which was carried on from that island, it may be mentioned, on the authority of the statements of the Heligoland merchants, that sixty-six vessels and seventy smaller boats were able, during nineteen days in June 1809, to land on the coast goods to the value of several hundred thousand pounds. According to French reports, the guards along the Elbe and the Weser, too, were now reduced to a few untrustworthy Dutch soldiers and gendarmes under the command of a drunken officer. If we cross to Schleswig-Holstein territory, we find there the same phenomenon, namely, a huge expansion of the colonial trade. What is called the second Tönning period, which is marked by these American visits, began in June 1809, and lasted to the end of the year. The traffic all along the line was formally facilitated by the British government by means of the new Order in Council of April 26, which restricted the declaration of blockade in the north to the River Ems, at least in so far as the German North Sea coast was not reckoned as a dependency of France, which, of course, is just what it actually was. In reality, however, this meant comparatively little, inasmuch as the old regulations were in practice applied by the issue of the British government licences, which shipping was scarcely able to do without.

At the same time English trade was being transferred to Gothenburg and the Baltic ports. In Gothenburg the British set up, in 1809, special warehouses and stores on Fotö immediately opposite the entrance to the harbour. The re-exports of raw sugar almost trebled, while the exports of coffee, like the shipping of the port in general, more than doubled. The Prussian and the Pomeranian ports now became regular gates of entry for the importation of goods; and the Baltic coast came to be the centre of trade to such an extent that the fierante, the Jewish traders of Eastern Europe, went to Königsberg and Riga, instead of Leipzig, in order to cover their requirements of British manufactures. Finally, great quantities of British yarn came to Trieste and Fiume before the Austro-French war, and even after its close, from the repurchased parcels.