D'ivernois's Epigram

Naturally enough, people in England, especially in government circles, took a very optimistic view of the situation. The new Order in Council of April 1809, however modest was its modification of the paper blockade, is an evidence of this fact. Reasons are found for it in 'different events and changes which have occurred in the relations between Great Britain and the territories of other powers', which meant, of course, the Iberian peninsula. In February 1809, Lord Liverpool, formerly Lord Hawkesbury, who was home secretary at the time, spoke in the House of Lords about 'the flourishing state of commerce'; and as late as May 1810, the British budget debate was marked entirely by a feeling of booming trade and prosperity, so that even on the side of the opposition Huskisson considered that the country was in a happy state of development. Especially seductive was the roseate description given by Perceval as chancellor of the exchequer; and Rose, the vice-president of the Board of Trade, said that he was unable, to be sure, to explain how it could be so, 'but somehow it appeared, that from the industry and ingenuity of our merchants every prohibitory measure of Bonaparte's had utterly failed of its object. In fact, our trade, instead of being limited by it, had rather been extended, in spite of the hostile proceedings of the enemy.' The same idea was expressed with a touch of in a contemporary epigram placed on the title-page of a pamphlet by Sir Francis d'Ivernois, a Swiss naturalized in England, entitled Effets du blocus continental: