Or again, devious routes were resorted to.  Sugar was smuggled from London into Germany by way of Salonica, that being now almost the only neutral port open to British commerce.  Thence it was borne in panniers on the backs of mules over the Balkans to Belgrade, where it was transferred to barges and carried up the Danube.  Another illicit trade route was from the desolate shores of Dalmatia through Hungary.  The writer of a pamphlet, “England, Ireland, and America,” states that his firm then employed 500 horses on and near that coast in carrying British goods into Central Europe, and that the cost of getting them into France was “about L28 per cwt., or more than fifty times the present freight to Calcutta.”  In fact, the result of the Emperor’s economic experiments may be summed up in the statement of Chaptal that the general run of prices in France was higher by one-third than it was before 1789.

Now the merest tyro might see that the difference in price above the normal level was paid by the consumer.  The colonial producer, the British merchant and shipper were certainly harassed, and trade was dislocated; but, as Mollien observed, commerce soon adapted itself to altered conditions; and merchants never parted with their wares without getting hard cash or resorting to the primitive method of barter.  Money was also frequently melted down in France and Germany so as to effect bargains with England in bars of metal.  And so, in one way or another, trade was carried on, with infinite discomfort and friction, it is true; but it never wholly ceased even between England and France direct.

In fact, Napoleon so clung to the old mercantilist craze of stimulating exports in order that they might greatly exceed the imports, as to favour the sending of agricultural produce to England, provided that such cargoes comprised manufactured goods.  He allowed this privilege not only to his Empire but also to the Kingdom of Italy.[232] The difficulty was that England would not receive the manufactured goods of her enemies; and, as corn and cheese could not be exported to England, unless a certain proportion of silk and cloths went with them, the latter were got up so as to satisfy the French customs officers and then cast into the sea.  It is needless to add that this export of manufactures to England, on which Napoleon prided himself, was limited to showy but worthless articles, which were made solely ad usum delphinorum.

It was fortunate for us that Napoleon entertained these crude ideas on political economy; for his action opened for us a loophole of escape from a very serious difficulty.  At that time our fast growing population was barely fed by our own wheat even after good seasons; and Providence afflicted us in 1809 and 1810 with very poor harvests.  In 1810 the average price was 103 shillings the quarter, the highest ever known except in 1800 and 1801; and as commerce was dislocated by the Continental System and hand-labour was being