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 *duce realised almost as greatly enhanced prices in England; so that, although the mass of the people on both sides the Channel suffered deeply from the interruptions caused by the Decrees on the one hand and the numerous Orders in Council on the other, producing great obstructions to the ordinary course of commerce, numerous classes amassed fortunes by these disturbing elements.

To add to the many sufferings the war created and to the confusion these sweeping proclamations had entailed, the price of wheat rapidly advanced in the spring of 1808. The scantiness of the crop of the previous year was beginning to be seriously felt, while apprehension daily increased that the exclusion of the British flag from the trade of the Baltic would cut off from England her supplies of food from that quarter of the world.

But though British ships were to a great extent excluded from the trade of the Baltic, the Orders in Council enabled them in the long run to obtain almost a complete monopoly of the other portions of the carrying trade of the world. England at this time had practically exclusive possession of the East and West Indies; and the colonial produce brought in her vessels was, in spite of the efforts of Bonaparte,