Baltic Trade

All this shows clearly how important the Baltic trade, side by side with the Mediterranean trade, had become since the North Sea blockade had increased in efficiency. British shipping passed more and more to the Baltic; and it was there, accordingly, that Napoleon had to exert his greatest pressure—a fact, indeed, which found expression in repeated warnings issued to the Baltic powers in the course of the summer. But it was not until the autumn of 1810 that matters became really critical; and the events that then occurred had far-reaching consequences. A British commercial flotilla of six hundred vessels under different neutral flags, with a cargo worth £8,000,000 or, £9,000,000 had been delayed at Gothenburg by unfavourable weather until August (according to Lord Bathurst's statement in the House of Lords in 1812, it was only until June) and had then passed into the Baltic in September in order to proceed to Swedish, Russian, and Prussian ports. Napoleon now saw in this a possibility of striking a great blow against this important part of English trade, and in October he overwhelmed the different governments, partly through Champagny, his foreign minister, and partly by direct appeals, with the most urgent reminders to confiscate all these vessels, which, in the words of Champagny, were 'wandering about like the fragments of a scattered army'. Threats that Napoleon himself would send people to confiscate the cargoes, if the governments failed to do so on their own account, alternated with highly-coloured pictures of the economic crisis in England and of the certainty of her submission within a year as a consequence of complete confiscation; and also, finally, inducements were offered by reference to the profits which would be reaped by confiscation.

In Mecklenburg Napoleon considered that he had effected his will by this means, namely, in the shape of the expulsion of the vessels; and Prussia also gave way, although Clérembault, the Emperor's own consul at Königsberg, largely made seizures illusory, as we know. The question now was about Russia; but here Napoleon met with resistance. Emperor Alexander obstinately refused to have all nominally neutral vessels confiscated, and, besides, denied that more than about sixty vessels (the French ambassador at St. Petersburg, Caulain-court, gave the figure for loaded vessels since the middle of September, according to Russian allegations, as only fifteen) had arrived at his ports; and this fact he tried to explain by stating that some of them had returned and others had discharged at Gothenburg and other Swedish ports. This latter statement may indeed be nearly correct. In consequence of all this, it is apparent that Napoleon's action had failed in the main, although evidently a good deal had been seized in Russia. A memorandum from British merchants in 1816 gave such a high amount (as far as we can judge, much too high) as 140 cargoes with a value of £1,500,000. In Sweden, where smaller practical results than ever were to be attained—so unreservedly was Swedish policy based on the support of the British fleet under Saumarez—there was effected in the spring of 1811 at Karlshamn, by accident, a great seizure of over a hundred vessels under the flags not only of Denmark and Prussia, but also of Hamburg, Papenburg, &c., in the belief that they really were cargoes of the first two nationalities. But when they proved to be British property, of an estimated value of £500,000, a settlement was effected whereby the goods were treated as Swedish and then by fictitious purchase returned to their former owners, so that the British here lost nothing. The heat with which Napoleon had pursued his course of action against Russia with regard to the British vessels—among other things, the demands laid down in a personal letter addressed to the Emperor Alexander—largely contributed to widen the gulf between the two allies, and was a contributory cause to the breach in the sphere of trade war which was practically brought about on the last day of 1810 by the famous Russian customs ukase, which, as has been mentioned before, was directed against French goods. In the course of 1811 the split was steadily increased by Alexander's more and more openly displayed good-will towards British vessels, which now came in without hindrance in large flotillas and discharged their goods on the Russian coast. According to a letter written by Napoleon at the end of August 1811, 150 vessels had in this way been received in Russian ports under the American flag.