- duce realised almost as greatly enhanced prices
in England; so that, although the mass of the people on both sides the Channel suffered deeply from the interruptions caused by the Decrees on the one hand and the numerous Orders in Council on the other, producing great obstructions to the ordinary course of commerce, numerous classes amassed fortunes by these disturbing elements.
To add to the many sufferings the war created and to the confusion these sweeping proclamations had entailed, the price of wheat rapidly advanced in the spring of 1808. The scantiness of the crop of the previous year was beginning to be seriously felt, while apprehension daily increased that the exclusion of the British flag from the trade of the Baltic would cut off from England her supplies of food from that quarter of the world.[1]
partly accounted for by the Orders in Council. But though British ships were to a great extent excluded from the trade of the Baltic, the Orders in Council enabled them in the long run to obtain almost a complete monopoly of the other portions of the carrying trade of the world. England at this time had practically exclusive possession of the East and West Indies; and the colonial produce brought in her vessels was, in spite of the efforts of Bonaparte,
- ↑ The freight on wheat from the Baltic rose to 50s. per quarter. The price of linseed advanced from 43s. to 150s. Hemp rose in price from 58l. to 108l. per ton; flax from 58l. per ton in 1807, to 118l. per ton in the following year. Memel timber, which, during 1806 and 1807, had varied from the extremes of 73s. to 170s. per load, advanced to 340s. per load; while deals rose in a similar proportion. Russian tallow rose from 53s. to 112s. per cwt. Freights on all these articles ranged exceedingly high. For instance, timber was charged at 10l. per load; tallow at 20l. and hemp at 30l. per ton; in fact, at ten to twenty times greater than the current rates of the present period (Tooke's 'History of Prices,' vol. i. pp. 309-343).
