s of that
Power ought to find nothing but rocks of iron" in that river, "which
was as important to France as the Thames to England."[226] But the
head and front of his offending was that British goods still found
their way into Holland. In vain did the Emperor forbid that American
ships which had touched at English ports should be debarred from those
of Holland. In vain did he threaten to close the Scheldt and Rhine to
Dutch barges. Louis held on his way, with kindly patience towards his
merchants, and with a Bonapartist obstinacy proof against fraternal
advice or threats. At last, early in 1810, Napoleon sent troops to
occupy Walcheren and neighbouring Dutch lands. It seemed for a time as
though this was but a device to extort favourable terms of peace from
England in return for an offer that France would not annex Holland.
Negotiations to this effect were set on foot through the medium of
Ouvrard and Labouchere, son-in-law of the banker Baring: Fouche also,
without the knowledge of his master, ventured to put forth a
diplomatic feeler as to a possible Anglo-French alliance against the
United States, an action for which he was soon very properly
disgraced.[227]

The negotiation failed, as it deserved to do. Our objections were, not
merely to the absurd proposal that we should give up our maritime code
if Napoleon would abstain from annexing Holland and the Hanseatic
towns, but still more against the man himself and his whole policy. We
had every reason to distrust the good faith of the man who had
betrayed the Turks at Tilsit, Portugal at Fontainebleau, and the
Spaniards at Bayonne. To pause in the strife, to relax our hold on our
new colonies, and to desert the Spaniards, in order to preserve the
merely titular independence of Holland and the Hanse Towns, would have
been an act of singular simplicity. Nor does Napoleon seem to have
expected it. He wrote to his Foreign Minister, Champagny, on March
20th, 1810: "From not having made peace sooner, England has lost
Naples, Spain, Portugal, and the market of Trieste. If she delays much
longer, she will lose Holland, the Hanse Towns, and Sicily." And
surely this Sibylline conduct of his required that he should annex
these lands and all Europe in order to exact a suitable price from the
exhausted islanders. Such was the corollary of the Continental System.

Meanwhile Louis, nettled by the inquisitions of the French
_douaniers_, and by the order of his brother to seize all