The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II

That is, about 8 per cent annually. The increase during the four years of the elder Pitt in the Seven Years' War, 1757-1761, was 29 per cent, about 7 per cent annually.

481

Système Maritime et Politique des Européens dans le 18

siècle, par Arnould. Paris, 1797.

482

For Napoleon's own assertion of this fact, see "Note pour le Ministre des Relations Extérieures," Corr. de Nap., Oct. 7, 1810. See also ante, p. 320.

483

Martin, Hist. de France depuis 1789, vol. i. p. 396.

484

Annual Register, 1793, p. 163. For the correspondence on that occasion see A. R. 1792; State Papers, pp. 326, 327. See also letter of Le Brun, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, in the Moniteur of Aug. 26, 1792.

485

The Directory tended to impose upon the smaller states, neighboring to or allies of France, republican constitutions, "unitaires" (centralized) in form, analogous to our own, as Bonaparte had done for the Cisalpine Republic and for Genoa. It had just done so in Holland, where it had raised against the government of the United Provinces a kind of 18th of Fructidor (coup d'état). It now (1798) aimed at revolutionizing Switzerland. Bonaparte urged it on. He had already provoked a revolution in a republic near to and allied with the Swiss, that of the Grisons.—Martin: Hist. de France depuis 1789, vol. iii. p. 7.

486

Napoleon's remark referred to the edicts of the Directory, confiscating British goods wherever found on land; but it applies equally to the decree of January, 1798, which extended the edict to the sea: "Le Directoire ébaucha le système du blocus continental; il ordonna la saisie de toutes les marchandises Anglaises qui pouvaient se trouver à Mayence et dans les autres pays cédés à la France." (Commentaires de Napoléon I., Paris, 1867, vol. iii. p. 413.)

487

This correspondence, so far as published, is to be found in the Annual Register for 1797; State Papers, pp. 181-223.

488

See Stanhope's Life of Pitt, vol. ii. p. 224 (ed. 1879).

489

For a graphic description of the effects of the Berlin decree on the Continent, see Fyffe's History of Modern Europe, vol. i. p. 328.

490

Metternich's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 65.