It was frequently remarked of Buonaparte, that he studied a sort of theatrical effect in the mode of issuing his decrees and proclamations, the subject matter of which formed often a strange contrast with the date; the latter, perhaps, being at the capital of some subdued monarch, while the matter promulgated respected some minute regulation affecting the municipality of Paris. But there was no such discrepancy in the date and substance of the Berlin decrees against British enterprise. It was when Buonaparte had destroyed the natural bulwark which protected the independence of the north of Germany, and had necessarily obtained a corresponding power on the shores of the Baltic, that he seriously undertook to promulgate his sweeping plan of destroying the commerce of his Island foe.[254] When slight inconveniences, according to Buonaparte's expression, put an end to his hopes of invading Britain, or when, as at other times he more candidly admitted, the defeat at Trafalgar induced him "to throw helve after hatchet," and resign all hope of attaining any success by means of his navy, he became desirous of sapping and undermining the bulwark, which he found it impossible to storm; and, by directing his efforts to the destruction of British commerce, he trusted gradually to impair the foundations of her national wealth and prosperity. He erred, perhaps, in thinking that, even if his object could have been fully attained, the full consequences would have followed which his animosity anticipated. Great Britain's prosperity mainly rests on her commerce, but her existence as a nation is not absolutely dependent upon it; as those foreigners are apt to imagine, who have only seen the numerous vessels with which she covers the ocean and fills foreign ports, but have never witnessed the extent of her agricultural and domestic resources. But, entertaining the belief which Napoleon did, in regard to the indispensable connexion betwixt British commerce and British power, the policy of his war upon the former cannot be denied. It was that of the Abyssynian hunter, who, dreading to front the elephant in his fury, draws his sabre along the animal's heel-joint, and waits until the exertions of the powerful brute burst the injured sinews, and he sinks prostrate under his own weight. [Sidenote: BERLIN DECREES.]