Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/328

 their flag, as they did in later years, secretly intrigued with Napoleon to obtain a special immunity from his decrees for their shipping trade with England.

But while Napoleon was vainly fulminating his decrees against England, and putting into motion his whole power in Europe to carry them out, he himself first set the example of their evasion, and for a temporary profit established a system which tended to neutralise the very object he was making so many efforts to accomplish. Scarcely had a few months elapsed after the publication of the Berlin Decree, before it was discovered that a large source of revenue might be opened by granting, at exorbitant prices, licences to import British colonial produce and manufactures.

These licences were granted ostensibly to benefit French manufacture, under the obligation of exporting French or continental produce to an equal amount, a condition, however, which was easily and frequently evaded. In this manner a most lucrative trade was carried on, notwithstanding the exorbitant rates of the licences, and the great additional charges to which the whole transaction was subjected. British manufactures and colonial produce rose to an extravagant price in France, while foreign pro-*