Introduction Revisiting Napoleon’s Continental System: Consequences of Economic Warfare
John Webb, a Bristol merchant operating from the Tuscan port city of Livomo, wrote in April 1812 to New York merchants Thomas Masters and Francis “Markoe on the prospects of American commerce in the Mediterranean market-1 He identified such commodities as sugar, coffee, dried codfish, hides, cocoa and pimento as fin great demand’, but he recommended Civitavecchia as the port of call since Livomo remained under blockade.2 The case of the Irish-bom New York merchant James Watson underscores the opportunities for profit and challenges of great losses- Watson owned or held interest in 12 vessels that yielded profits carrying Barilla bark, cot- ton, rice, coffee, cocoa, indigo, wines, sugar, hides, corn, flaxseed, beeswax, turpentine and lumber to European, Asian, Caribbean and domestic ports; he, however, eventually lost three ships to French privateers and one to the British before he finally decided to sell the Huntress and the schooner Betsy in 1813 at a loss. Beaten by his debtors at home and abroad, he travelled to France in 1814 to regain his health and trade, but died there a year later ” Finally, a letter from Hope and Company in Amsterdam in 1809 to Stephen Dutilh, a French-American merchant located in Philadelphia, discouraged further commerce and emphasized the scale of smuggling in ‘’articles of small and large volume, by which our wants are sufficiently fed to prevent absolute scarcity’.4
Chapter, 2015