[275] _Vide_ Martin’s ‘Law of Nations,’ Sup. 5, 437, 435, and ‘Annual Register,’ 1806, p. 677, for the Order in Council detaining Prussian ships. In discussing “the rights of war as to neutrals,” Wheaton remarks that “during the wars of the French Revolution the United States, being neutral, admitted that the immunity of their flag did not extend to cover enemy’s property, as a principle founded on the customary law and established usage of nations, though they sought every opportunity of substituting for it the opposite maxim of _free ships_, _free goods_, by conventional arrangements with such nations as were disposed to adopt that modification of the universal law” (vol. ii. pp. 176, 177). [276] There is a further Decree of March 23, 1810, known as the ‘Rambouillet Decree’ on this subject (see ‘Key to Orders in Council,’ No. 13). [277] _Moniteur_, 18th Nov., 1810. At Hamburg, in 1811, under the bloody government of Davoust, an unhappy father was shot for having introduced into his house a small sugar-loaf, of which his family stood in need: yet at that very moment Napoleon was probably signing a licence for the importation of a million of such loaves. Smuggling on a small scale was punished with death; but the government carried it on upon the greatest scale. The same regulations filled the prisons with victims and the imperial coffers with revenue. Note by Alison, vol. xi. p. 173, from Bourrienne, vol. vii. p. 233. [278] The freight on wheat from the Baltic rose to 50_s._ per quarter. The price of linseed advanced from 43_s._ to 150_s._ Hemp rose in price from 58_l._ to 108_l._ per ton; flax from 58_l._ per ton in 1807, to 118_l._ per ton in the following year. Memel timber, which, during 1806 and 1807, had varied from the extremes of 73_s._ to 170_s._ per load, advanced to 340_s._ per load; while deals rose in a similar proportion. Russian tallow rose from 53_s._ to 112_s._ per cwt. Freights on all these articles ranged exceedingly high. For instance, timber was charged at 10_l._ per load; tallow at 20_l._ and hemp at 30_l._ 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). [279] A copy of these warrants will be found in ‘Parl. Papers,’ 1808, vol. xi. p. 117. They were signed by the Lords of the Treasury.