French Shipping Monopoly

Finally, also, the licensing system was elaborated into a purely protectionist measure with regard to French shipping. In his letter to Decrès, the naval minister, written on the same day as the issue of the Milan decree, Napoleon had already prescribed that all non-French vessels should be detained in his ports; and now the licensing system was adopted to the end of creating a practically complete monopoly for the French mercantile marine. Especially openhearted in this matter is the Emperor's commentary on the licence decree of July 25, contained in a letter to his lieutenant in Holland after the incorporation of that country, the arch-treasurer Prince Lebrun (August 20, 1810). After observing that no vessel, according to the first article of the decree, could depart to a foreign port without licence, he goes on to say: 'The article 'applies to all kinds of vessels, French, neutral or foreign; that is to say, with the exception [sic] that I do not grant licences to other than French vessels. In two words, I will not hear of any neutral vessel, and as a matter of fact there is in reality no such thing; for they are all vessels which violate the blockade and pay tribute to England. As to the word foreign, that means foreign to France. Thus foreign vessels cannot trade with France or leave our ports, because there are no neutrals.' According to a previously cited letter to Eugene, of September 19, Napoleon develops still further the idea, in that, with the sole exception of naturalized captured vessels, he requires that the vessels shall even be built in France. It is true that all this did not apply without exception, for in some individual cases licences were granted to vessels of allied or neutral states. Likewise the Hanse Towns, which belonged to Napoleon, Danzig, and towns in Italy, received licences, though only upon payment of unusually high fees; as a rule, however, allies were excluded as rigorously as neutrals. Especially hard did the system strike against France's most faithful ally, Denmark, who saw all her vessels in the ports of Napoleon seized and detained, despite endless negotiations and the support of Davout; and when the vessels were finally released, in the spring of 1812, at which time there were still eighty left, their release was conditioned upon exportation of huge quantities of French silks, which was an absolute impossibility. We obtain the right background for these tactics when we take into consideration the fact that Denmark had also to submit to supplying other vessels for the transport of corn to Holland and at the same time to place officers and sailors at Napoleon's disposal for the naval expedition that he was then equipping on the Scheldt against England.

Thus there can be no doubt that the Continental System had missed its mark in several decisive respects. Instead of hitting the enemy, it had partly shot past him and become a means of promoting the interests of France—correctly or incorrectly conceived—at the expense of her own helpers in the struggle against Great Britain. The customs policy proper had had this tendency from the very beginning; and its later development, which continued along the same lines, will be described in connexion with the effects of the system on the Continent, in part IV of this book. To what extent all this had driven Napoleon into the very course that the British in reality aimed at from start to finish, is shown with unusual clearness by a statement made in the autumn of 1811 by General Walterstorff, the Danish minister in Paris at the time, to the effect that France had no other trade except with England and, of course, wished to keep that for herself. Here we find the position described in words almost the same as those employed by the British ministers with regard to the object of their policy. So far the success of the system was almost incontestable—for Great Britain.