uction. Ridicule
attended the installation of the odious prevotal courts. The president
of the Prevotal Court at Hamburg, who was a Frenchman, delivered an
address, in which he endeavoured to prove that in the time of the
Ptolemies there had existed extraordinary fiscal tribunals, and that it
was to those Egypt owed her prosperity. Terror was thus introduced by
the most absurd folly. The ordinary customhouse officers, formerly so
much abhorred in Hamburg, declared with reason that they would soon be
regretted, and than the difference between them and the prevotal courts
would soon be felt. Bonaparte's counsellors led him to commit the folly
of requiring that a ship which had obtained a licence should export
merchandise equivalent to that of the colonial produce to be imported
under the authority of the licence. What was the consequence? The
speculators bought at a low price old stores of silk-which change of
fashion had made completely unsaleable, and as those articles were
prohibited in England they were thrown into the sea without their loss
being felt. The profits of the speculation made ample amends for the
sacrifice. The Continental system was worthy only of the ages of
ignorance and barbarism, and had it been admissible in theory, was
impracticable in application.

--[Sydney Smith was struck with the, ridiculous side of the war of
tariffs: "We are told that the Continent is to be reconquered by the
want of rhubarb and plums." (Essays of Sydney Smith, p. 533, edition
of 1861).]--

It cannot be sufficiently stigmatised. They were not the friends of the
Emperor who recommended a system calculated to rouse the indignation of
Europe, and which could not fail to create reaction. To tyrannize over
the human species, and to exact uniform admiration and submission, is to
require an impossibility. It would seem that fate, which had still some
splendid triumphs in store for Bonaparte, intended to prepare beforehand
the causes which were to deprive him of all his triumphs at once, and
plunge him into reverses even greater than the good fortune which had
favoured his elevation.

The prohibition of trade, the habitual severity in the execution of this
odious system, made it operate like a Continental impost. I will give a
proof of this, and I state nothing but what came under my own
observation. The fiscal regulations were very rigidly enforced at
Hamburg, and along the two lines of Cuxhaven and Travemunde. M. Eu