[PDF]War in disguise : or, The frauds of the neutral flags

Robert E. Gross
Colleftion

h

A Memorial to the Founder A,

of the


Business Administration Lihrary
Los Angeles


WAP. IN DISGUISE;


OB.


THE FRAUDS


OF THE


JVEUTR^L F]L^1GS.


LONDON:

PRINTED BY C. WHITflNGHAM,
Dean Street ;


AND SOLD BY J. HATCHARD, PICCADILLY,


1805.


PREFACE.


X HOUGH the following sheets have
been written and sent to press in con-
siderable haste, on account of some tem-
porary considerations which add to the
immediate importance of their subject,
the author has spared no pains that could
tend to guard his statements from mistake.
His facts are, for the most part, derived,
as the reader will perceive, from those au-
thentic and orio-inal sources of informa-
tion, the records of our courts of prize:
and it may therefore perhaps be surmised,
that some practitioner iii t'lose courts, if
not the author of the argLuncnt, has at
least contributed his aid, in furnishing pre-
mises for its use.

Adverting to the probability of such a
conjecture, and to an erroneous notion
which he knows to be very prevalent,
namely, that the practitioners in the ad-


tniralty courts have an interest opposite to
the pretensions of neutral merchants, he
thinks it right to guard both his facts and
his opinions against this source of jea-
lousy, by one brief remark — contests in
the prize jurisdiction arise almost exclu-
sively from claims of property preferred by
neutrals^ and therefore, the business of
the prize courts, would obviously be im-
paired, not extended, by narrowing the
legal confines of the neutral flags.

If the intelligent reader should stand
in no need of this information, he will still
feel such caution in an anonymous writer,
not to be excessive ; for however sacred a
national cause may be, it is become too
common a rule, to suppose that no man
exerts himself in it from a public mo*
live, if a private one can possibly be sus**
pected,

October 18M, 1805,


WAR IN DISGUISE,


1 HE hope of Peace, which long, though faintly,
gleamed from the North, has vanished ; the poli-
tical atmosphere of Europe is become darker
than ever; and the storm menaces a wider range,
as well as a lengthened duration.

At such a period, it is natural to cast forward an
anxious glance toward the approaching events of
war, and to calculate anew the chances of a happy
or disastrous issue of this momentous contest :
but it is wise also to look backward, to review
the plan on which the war has hitherto been con-
ducted, and inquire, whether experience has not
proved it to be in some points, erroneous or
defective.

The season seems favourable for improvement,
especially in our offensive measures, since new re-


lations will, in all probability, demand an impor-
tant change in them ; while the acquisition of
allies, however powerful and active, will diminish
in no degree the duty of putting forth our utmost
exertions.

Fatal might be that assistance in the war, which
should lead us to cherish less carefully our own
independent means of annoyance or defence. The
arch enemy of the civilized world, in the prospect
of having a new confederacy to contend with, like
Satan when opposed to the angelic phalanx, is
" collecting all his might," and seems to be prepar-
ing, for his continental foes at least, an impe-
tuous attack ; nor are their preparations of a cha-
racter less decisive

" One stroke they aim,
" That may determine, and not need repeat.'*

A single campaign, if disastrous to our allies,
may realise some of the late threats of Buonaparte.
He may acquire " a new line of coast, new ports,
" new countries," and then, he fairly tells us the
consequence — " the defeat of our confederates
" would be reflected back upon ourselves — would
" leave France more at liberty than ever to turn her
" whole attention to her war with this country, and
*' to employ against us still augmented means of
" annoyance ;" it would render our dangers, as he
truly says, " more imminent," though, I trust, he is


mistaken in the insulting conclusion, that it would
" insure our fall*."

The plan whiclj this exasperated enemy has
formed for our destruction, is of a nature far
more formidable than that which he ostenta-
tiously displayed. The flotilla at Boulogne, and
the army of the coast, have chiefly excited
our attention ; but the restitution of his regular
marine, and the increase of the confederated na-
vies, h^ve been the Usurper's more rational de-
pendence, and the means of war which he has
been indefatigably labouring to provide. En-
raged at the interruption of this plan by his quarrel
with Austria, he now avows in his complaints its
real nature and magnitude — He asserts to the
Gernianic Diet, " that he has been employing all
" the resources of his empire, to construct fleets,
" to form his marine, and to improve his ports f;"
nor is the important fact unfounded, though al-
leged by Buonaparte.

These dangerous efforts may be in some mea-
sure diverted by the new continental war ; but
they will not be wholly suspended j and should
we again be left singly to sustain the contest,

* See an ofiicial article in the Moniteur of August 16th
pr 17th, copied into the London papers of the 28th.

f Paper presented by M. Bacher to the Diet o Ratisbonj!
Moniteur of September 11th.

B 2


thcv will, of course, be resumed on their former
scale, with renovated vigour and effect.

In preparations like these, consist the chief
danger, not only of England, but of Europe ; for
the fall of this country, or what would be the
same in effect, the loss, at this perilous conjunc-
ture, of our superiority at sea, would remove from
before the ambition of France almost every ob-
stacle by which its march to universal empire
could be finally impeded.

Nor let us proudly disdain to suppose the pos-
sibility of such a reverse. Let us reflect, what
the navies of France, Spain, and Holland once
were • let us consider that these countries form
but a part of those vast maritime regions, the
united resources of which are now at the com-
mand of the same energetic government j and if
these considerations are not enough to repel a
dangerous confidence, let those great maritime
advantages of the enemy, wdiich the following
pages will expose, be added to the large account ;
for I propose to shew, in the encroachments and
frauds of the neutral flags, a nursery and a refuge
of the confederated navies; as well as the secret
conduitsof a large part of those imperial resources,
the pernicious application of which to the restij;u-
tion of his marine, the Usurper has lately boasted
— I propose to shew in them his best hopes
ill a naval war 3 as well as channels of a res-


teiiue, which sustains the ambition of France,-
and prolongs the miseries of Europe.

In the retrospect of the last war, and of the
progress we have yet made in the present, one
singular fact immediately arrests the attention.

The finances of France appear scarcely to be im-
paired, much less exhausted, by her enormous mili-
tary establishments and extensive enterprizes, not-
withstanding the ruin so long apparently imposed
on her commerce. Poverty, the ordinary sedative
of modern ambition, the common peace-maker
between exasperated nations, seems no longer to
be the growth of war.

The humblest reader ijti this land of politicianSj
if he has raised his eyes so high as to the lore of
Poor Robin's Almanack, has learned that — " War
begets poverty, poverty peace, &c." ; but now^
he may reasonably doubt the truth of this simple
pedigree ; while the statesman, must be staggered
to find the first principles of his art shaken by
this singular case.

In fact, political writers have been greatly em-
barrassed with it ^ and have laboured to account for
it by the unprecedented nature of the interior situ-
ation and policy of France, or from the rapacious
conduct of her armies ; but none of these theories
were quite satisfactory when promulged ; and they
have since, either been shaken by the failure of
those prospective consequences which were drawfi


(3

ftom them, or have been found inadecjuate to ex-s
plain the new and extended difficulties of the
case.

Let ample credit be taken for revolutionary
confiscations at home, and military rapine abroad,
for the open subsidies, or secret contributions of
alhes, and for the gifts or loans extorted from neu-
tral powers, by invasion or the menace of war;
still the aggregate amount, however enormous in
the eye of justice and humanity, must be small
when compared to the prodigious expences of
France.

In aid of that ordinary revenue, of which com-;
merce was the most copious source, these extra-
ordinary supplies may, indeed, be thought to have
sufficed ; but when we suppose the commercial
and colonial resources of France to have been
ruined by our hostilities during a period of near
twelve successive years, the brief term of the late
peace excepted ; and when we remember that she
lias not only sustained^ during a still longer period,
and with scarcely any cessation*, a war ardu-
ous and costly beyond all example, but has fed,
in addition to her military myriads, those nu-
merous swarms of needy and rapacious upstarts,
who have successively fastened on her treasury,

■* A most expensive contest with the negroes in the West
Indies, filled up the whole interval between the last and pre-
sent war.


and fattened by its spoil ; I say, when these ex-
hausting circumstances are taken into the account,
the adequacy of the supply to tlie expenditure,
seems, notwithstanding the guilty resources which
Iiave been mentioned, a paradox hard to explain.
Were the ordinary sources of revenue really lost,
those casual aids could no more maintain the
vast interior and exterior expences of France,
than the autumnal rains in Abyssinia could fill
the channel of the Nile, and enable it still to in-
undate the plains of Egypt, if its native stream
were drawn off.

Besides, the commerce, and thecolonialresources,
of Spain and Holland are, like those of France
herself, apparently ruined by the war. — When,
therefore, we calculated on contributions from
these allies, this common drawback on their finances
should diminish our estimate of that resource.

If we look back on the ^^•ars that preceded
the last, the difficulties in this subject will be en-
hanced.

To impoverish our enemies used, in our former
contests with France and Spain, to be a sure effect
of our hostilities; and its extent was always propor-
tionate to that of its grand instrument, our supe-
riority at sea. We distressed their trade, we inter-
cepted the produce of their colonies, and thus ex-
hausted their treasuries, by cutting off their chief
sources of revenue, as the philosopher proposed to


dry up the sea, by draining the rivers that fed it.
By the same means, their expenditure was im-
mensely increased, and wasted in defensive pur-
poses. They were obliged to maintain fleets in
distant parts of the world, and to furnish strong
convoys for the protection of their intercourse
with their colonies, both on the outward and
homeward voyages. Again, the frequent capture
of these convoys, while it enriched our seamen,
and by the increase of import duties aided our
revenue, obliged our enemies, at a fresh expence,
to repair their loss of ships ; and when a convoy
outward-bound, was the subject of capture, com-
pelled them either to dispatch duplicate supplies
in the same season, at the risk of new disasters, or
to leave their colonies in distress, and forfeit the
benefit of their crops for the year.

In short, their transmarine possessions became
expensive incumbrances, rather than sources of
revenue ; and through tlie iteration of such losses,
more than by our naval victories, or colonial con-
quests, the house of Bourbon was vanquished by
the masters of the sea.

Have we then lost the triumphant means of
such effectual warfare ; or have the ancient fields
of victory been neglected ?

Neither such a misfortune, nor such folly, can
be alledged. Never was our maritime superiority
more decisive than in the last and present war.


We are still the unresisted masters of every sea;
and the open intercourse of our enemies with
their colonies, was never so completely precluded ;
yet we do not hear that the merchants of France,
Spain, and Holland are ruined, or that their co-
lonies are distressed, much less that their exche-
quers are empty.

The true solution of these seeming difficulties,
is this — The commercial and colonial iuterests of
our enemies, are now ruined in appearance only,
not in reality. They seem to have retreated from
the ocean, and to have abandoned the ports of
their colonies, but it is a mere ruse de guerre —
They have, in effect, for the most part, only
changed their flags, chart; red many vessels really
neutral, and altered a little the former routes of
their trade. Their transmarine sources of re-
venue, have not been for a moment destroyed
by our hostilities, and at present are scarcely im-
paired.

Let it not, however, be supposed, that the
protection of the trade, and the revenue of an
enemy, from the fair effects of our arms, is the
only prejudice we have sustained by the abuse of
the neutral flag. To the same pestilent cause,
are to be ascribed various other direct and col-
lateral disadvantages, the effects of which we
have severely felt in the late and present war,
and which now menace consequences still more

c


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pernicious, both to us and our allies. Hither-
to we have suffered the grossest invasions of our
belligerent rights, warrantably if not wisely ; for
the cost was all our own ; and while the enemy
totally abandoned the care of his marine, the sa-
crifice could more safely be made : but now, when
he is eagerly intent on the restitution of his navy,
and when other powers have gallantly stood forth
to stem the torrent of French ambition, the asser-
tion of our maritime rights is become a duty to
them as well as to ourselves : for our contribution
to an offensive war must be weak, or far less than
may justly be expected from such an ally as
Great Britain, while the shield of an insidious
neutrality is cast between the enemy, and the
sword of our naval power.

In the hope of contributing to the correction
of this great evil, I propose to consider, —

1st. Its origin, nature, and extent.

9d. The remedy, and the right of apply-
ing it .

3d. The prudence of that resort.

There are few political subjects more impor-
tant, and few, perhaps, less generally understood
by the intelligent part of the community, than
the nature of that neutral commerce, which has
lately in some measure excited the public atten-
tion, in consequence of the invectives of Buonaparte
and the complaints of the American merchants.


11

The Mnniteur asserts, that we have declared sugar
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