The National Register.
London, England, 1809-11-26 00:00:00

746

TIM NATIONAL

our investiatiens, have no other object but the public
good : and, cou,cyuei►tly, to detect error ; warn against
official incapacity ; decry abuses ; revive the spirit and
policy of better days, and try to substitute a fixed, vigo-
rous and enlightened plan of operation, for the vacillating,
inadepiate, u►►ti►uely, and unsystematic measures, which
have lately disgraced our foreign interference, rendered
it useless, or detrimental to our allies, a subject of regret,,,
disappointment, and pity, to the friends of freedom, and an
inexhaustible theme of sarcasm to the enemy ; when it
might have regulated the destinies of Europe.
It cannot be denied that our internal prosperity has at-
tained an acin( unrivalled in any ►►ge, or country. The
bold and persevering industry of our merchants, and, per-
haps, the policy of the Orders in Conned, keep up the pro-
fits and extent of our commerce in spite of the coercive
decrees of the enemy. When one market is closed, the
enterprising spirit of British traders soon explores another.
The clogs imposed by tyranny on the trade of the conti-
nent, favours the introduction of our productions ; and the
general misery which unjust restrictions create, encourages
the needy and the adventurous to incur the risk of an illicit
commerce, for the great profits it presents. Along the

coasts of the
.Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Channel; and
the Baltic, notwithstanding the vigilance and the hatred of
the enemy, British manufactures, and Colonial produce.

find a certain and constant market. Excessive severity, or
an incessant change of customhouse officers, may impede
this intercourse, in some points ; but, in proportion to the
vigour employed in one place, it is carried on with greater
activity in another. There is not a town in the interior of
the Continent, even in France herself, where the produce of
English industry is not openly sold. The officers of the
teens crarraerie. the commissaries of the police, the agents
of the do:tones, are all interested and cariched by this clan-
destine trade. We know this circumstance from oral and
occulat testimony ; and have seen, three years ago, on the
Banks of the Rhine, privileged shops in Cologne, Mentz,
and Coblentz, where articles of British and East-India ma-

nufactory, were exposed to public view, and public sale.
Companies were established, at the same time, along the
opposite banks of the same river, which undertook, for a
-premium of twelve per cent, to introduce beyond the treple
barrier of.custom- houie officers, any quantity, of prohi-
bited merchandize, the speculator agreed upon. These
companies were not partial establishments : they extended
from Neufchatel to Embden. What rendered the prohi-
bition still more ridiculona, immense hales wile frequently
deposited in the .'rench custom-honses along the Rhine,
where orders had been previously 'transmitted from Pari,
not to examine the contents. The general opinion enter-
tained-in those places was, that they consisted of proili-;
bited ankles for the use of some privilego'd persons, or
traders, is Paris.- When a relaxation to such an enormous
extent prevailed even in the capital, the difficulty of main-
taining a system olco-ereion, along the shores of the Baltic
And Adriatic, is obvious. The necessities of the several
governments, not immediately dependrnt upon the usurper,
compel them to relax ibilituaulim of this inter-
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