The Director of the Customs at Hamburg got angry, but I held firm:  my cloths and my leather arrived; cloaks, coats; boots, all were promptly made, and our soldiers thus were sheltered from the severity of the season.  To preserve peace with the Imperial Custom-house I wrote to M. Collie, then Director-General, that M. Eudel having wished to put in execution the law of the 10th Brumaire and complaints had been made on every side.  Marshal Brune asked for my opinion on this matter, and I gave it to him.  I declared to M. Collie that the full execution of the decree of 31st October 1796 was impracticable, injurious to France, and to the Hanseatic Towns, without doing harm to England.  Indeed, what said article 5 of this law?  “All goods imported from foreign countries, whatever may be their origin, are to be considered as coming from English manufacturers.”  According to this article France was a foreign country for the Hanseatic Towns, and none of the objects enumerated in this article ought to enter Hamburg!  But the town received from England a large quantity of fine cloths, buttons; ironmongery, toys, china; and from France only clocks, bronzes, jewellery, ribbons, bonnets, gauzes and gloves.  “Let,” said I to M. Eudel, “the Paris Duane be asked what that town alone exports in matters of this sort and it will be seen how important it is not to stop a trade all the more profitable to France, as the workmanship forms the greatest part of the price of the goods which make up this trade.  What would happen if the importation of these goods were absolutely prohibited in Hamburg?  The consignments would cease, and one of the most productive sources of trade for France, and especially for Paris would be cut off.”

At this time neither Hamburg nor its territory had any manufacture of cloth.  All woollen stuffs were prohibited, according to M. Eudel, and still my duty was to furnish, and I had furnished, 50,000 cloaks for the Grand Army.  In compliance with a recent Imperial decree I had to have made without delay 16,000 coats, 37,000 waistcoats, and the Emperor required of me 200,000 pairs of boots, besides the 40,000 pairs I had sent in.  Yet M. Eudel said that tanned and worked leather ought not to enter Hamburg!  If such a ridiculous application of the law of 1796 had been made it would have turned the decree of 21st November 1796 against France, without fulfilling its object.

These reflections, to which I added other details, made the Government conclude that I was right, and I traded with England to the great advantage of the armies, which were well clothed and shod.  What in the world can be more ridiculous than commercial laws carried out to one’s own detriment?

At the beginning of 1807 my occupations at Hamburg were divided between the furnishing of supplies for the army and the inspection of the emigrants, whom Fouche pretended to dread in order to give greater importance to his office.