But while Napoleon was vainly fulminating his decrees against England, and putting into motion his whole power in Europe to carry them out, he himself first set the example of their evasion, and for a temporary profit established a system which tended to neutralise the very object he was making so many efforts to accomplish. Scarcely had a few months elapsed after the publication of the Berlin Decree, before it was discovered that a large source of revenue might be opened by granting, at exorbitant prices, licences to import British colonial produce and manufactures.[277] [Sidenote: _Moniteur_, Nov. 18, 1810.] [Sidenote: Rise in the price of produce and freights,] These licences were granted ostensibly to benefit French manufacture, under the obligation of exporting French or continental produce to an equal amount, a condition, however, which was easily and frequently evaded. In this manner a most lucrative trade was carried on, notwithstanding the exorbitant rates of the licences, and the great additional charges to which the whole transaction was subjected. British manufactures and colonial produce rose to an extravagant price in France, while foreign produce 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.[278] [Sidenote: partly accounted for by the Orders in Council.]