ies, wondering at the strange increase of
funerals in a river-side suburb, peered into the hearses, and found
them stuffed full with bales of British merchandise. This gruesome
plan failing, others were tried. Large quantities of sand were brought
from the seashore, until, unfortunately for the housewives, some
inquisitive official found that it hailed from the West Indies.

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