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 largely replaced by
the new power-looms and improved spinning machinery, the outlook would
have been hopeless, had not our great enemy allowed us to import
continental corn. This device, which he imagined would impoverish us
to enrich his own States, was the greatest aid that he could have
rendered to our hard-pressed social system; and readers of Charlotte
Bronte's realistic sketches of the Luddite rioting in Yorkshire may
imagine what would have befallen England if, besides lack of work and
low wages, there had been the added horrors of a bread famine. But
fortunately the curious commercial notions harboured by our foe
enabled us in the winter of 1810-11 to get supplies of corn not only
from Prussia and Poland but even from Italy and France.

In one sense this incident has been misunderstood. It has been
referred to by Porter[233] and other hopeful persons as proof positive
that as long as we can buy corn we shall get it, even from our
enemies. It proves nothing of the sort. Napoleon's correspondence and
his whole policy with regard to licences, which we shall presently
examine, shows clearly that he believed he would greatly benefit his
own States and impoverish our people by selling us large stores of
corn at a very high price. There is no hint in any of his letters that
he ever framed the notion of _starving_ us into surrender. All that he
looked to was the draining away of our wealth by cutting off our
exports, and by allowing imports to enter our harbours much as usual.
As long as he prevented us selling our produce, he heeded little how