Confiscations

As was to be expected, the execution of the new decrees encountered far greater obstacles in the vassal states than in the incorporated territories. According to French opinion, the Trianon decree, in the beginning at least, remained a dead letter in all the states of the Confederation of the Rhine, except Baden. Prussia, like Saxony, made an attempt to except raw materials from the tariff; and the somewhat more independent states, such as Russia, Austria, and Sweden, never, so far as is known, introduced the tariff as a whole. It seems as if it was just this passive resistance in August and September 1810 that contributed to bring about the issue of the Fontainebleau decree in October. The great decree (for France) that usually bears this name, dated October 18 or possibly 19, was preceded a few days before (October 14) by a decree for the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt and followed by corresponding laws promulgated by the other states of the Confederation of the Rhine, as well as by Denmark and Switzerland. The most notorious and dramatic was Napoleon's intervention in Frankfurt. Although that town, and the Grand Duchy created for the last electoral prince of Mainz that bore the name of the town, was nominally a sovereign state, on October 17 and 18 it was suddenly entered by two French regiments of infantry without the Grand Duke being so much as informed of the event. All the gates were occupied and artillery was stationed on the great square, after which the decree was posted up and an order was given that a declaration should be made of all colonial and English goods. French customs officials searched all warehouses, sealed all vaults and seized all books and letters; in fact, the whole of the great trade movement was stopped. For several days there was a violent agitation, as the general belief was that all the goods were going to be confiscated; but the excitement abated somewhat when the colonial goods were released, by a new decree of November 8, on payment of duty according to the Trianon tariff. As usual, malversation occurred on a large scale; but none the less Darmstädter, the German historian, reckons the yield to the French treasury at 9,000,000 francs.

The fact that the direct intervention of France thus caused the other states to lose the profit served to stimulate the measures of those states themselves; and externally, at least, they began to show great zeal in obeying the new decrees, so that colonial goods were seized everywhere. In Leipzig, which corresponded in eastern Germany to Frankfurt in the west, there was an unusual amount of colonial goods in the autumn of 1810, as has previously been mentioned; but the great interest of the Saxon government in maintaining the fairs evidently prevented very forcible measures there against goods that were always in such great request. Among the most striking measures are those taken in Holstein, which had become one of the principal regions for the storage of colonial goods. In order to get them into his hands, Napoleon now conceded that for a limited time they might be imported into Hamburg on payment of the duties corresponding to the Trianon tariff; and at the same time he caused the Danish government to impose corresponding duties within his territory, in order that the owners should not be tempted to retain their goods. From Napoleon's point of view this move turned out better than most of the others. The final date had time after time to be moved forward until the spring of 1811, so that the enormous stores could be completely exported; and the French treasury made 19,700,000 francs on the payments in kind alone, and 42,500,000 francs altogether. Rist describes how during the last weeks the highways from Tönning were never free of loaded carts, inasmuch as half the peasants of Holstein had deserted their fields. Thousands were lost, many thousands were stolen, and hundreds of cart-loads waited all night at Hamburgerberg for the gates of the town to be opened. Cotton lay all about the fields like snow.

For the states of the interior there was a special difficulty in the treatment of colonial goods that had already passed through another state in Napoleon's sphere of power and had there paid duty according to the Trianon tariff. The method adopted at first, namely, the exaction of the duty in every country, was evidently fatal for intermediary states such as Frankfurt; and gradually an arrangement was made whereby the tariff was generally applied as a tax on consumption, not as a transit duty, but with freedom for goods that had once paid the duty. In this connexion, however, there was the usual difficulty created by the systematic measures of Prussia and Sweden (Swedish Pomerania) calculated to make the Continental System illusory, despite the most abject terms in the ordinances issued. Prussia allowed payment at par in government securities, which stood at 59.5 per cent.; and when the goods afterwards went through to other quarters with Prussian certificates of payment, the measures once again missed their aim. This went on until in the spring and summer of 1811 the Prussian certificates were disapproved and a fresh violent raid was made on what had been let through in the meantime. In consequence of this, the results of the new policy in Central Europe proper could not emerge clearly until the middle of 1811.

Owing to the confiscations which took place when non-declared colonial goods were discovered, great auctions were arranged—preferably in towns which lay at some distance from the great smuggling places, because the prices were highest there. Foremost among these was Antwerp, but of considerable importance also were Frankfurt, Cologne, Mainz, Strassburg, Milan, Venice and other towns near the old frontier of France. At these auctions the colonial trade was provided with goods and thus given a constant source of supply alongside the smuggled goods and the duty-paid imports; and by this means there was created a possibility, besides smuggling, of purchasing the goods at a rate lower than the foreign price plus the customs duty.