would only play England's game
yet more; and with characteristic rapidity Napoleon passed from
hostility to friendship. He seized on the offer with which America had
closed her efforts against the two combatants, and after promising to
revoke his Berlin and Milan Decrees he called on America to redeem her
pledge. In February 1811, therefore, the United States announced that
all intercourse with Great Britain and her dependencies was at an end.
The effect of this step was seen in a reduction of English exports
during this year by a third of their whole amount. It was in vain that
Britain pleaded that the Emperor's promises remained unfulfilled, that
neither of the decrees was withdrawn, that Napoleon had failed to return
the American merchandise seized under them, and that the enforcement of
non-intercourse with England was thus an unjust act, and an act of
hostility. The pressure of the American policy, as well as news of the
warlike temper which had at last grown up in the United States, made
submission inevitable; for the industrial state of England was now so
critical that to expose it to fresh shocks was to court the very ruin
which Napoleon had planned.

[Sidenote: State of England.]

During the earlier years of the war indeed the increase of wealth had
been enormous. England was sole mistress of the seas. The war gave her
possession of the colonies of Spain, of Holland, and of France; and if
her trade was checked for a time by the Berlin Decree, the efforts of
Napoleon were soon rendered fruitless by the smuggling system which
sprang up along the southern coasts and the coast of North Germany.
English exports indeed had nearly doubled since the opening of the
century. Manufactures were profiting by the discoveries of Watt and
Arkwright; and the consumption of raw cotton in the mills of Lancashire
rose during the same period from fifty to a hundred million of pounds.
The vast accumulation of capital, as well as the vast increase of the
population at this time, told upon the land, and forced agriculture into
a feverish and unhealthy prosperity. Wheat rose to famine prices, and
the value of land rose in proportion with the price of wheat. Inclosures
went on with prodigious rapidity; the income of every landowner was
doubled, while the farmers were able to introduce improvements into the
processes of agriculture which changed the whole face of the country.
But if the increase of wealth was enormous, its distribution