ART. 478. All the persons mentioned in art. 475, shall, in case of a repetition of the same contravention, be imprisoned for a term not exceeding five days.

SECTION III. Third class.

ART. 479. Persons guilty of the contraventions hereinafter described, shall be fined from eleven to fifteen francs inclusively, to wit:

1. Those who (in cases not provided for in arts. 434 to 462 inclusively) shall voluntarily do an injury to the personal property of others.

2. Those who shall occasion death or wounds in beasts or cattle belonging to others, by letting loose insane or mad men, mischievous or ferocious animals, or by the excessive speed, wrong direction or overloading of vehicles, beasts of saddle, draught or burden.

3. Those who shall produce the same mischief by awkwardly or imprudently making use of fire arms, or throwing stones or any other hard substance.

4. Those who shall be the cause of the same accidents, by not keeping in good order and repair, houses or buildings, or by incumbering the streets, roads or passages, or making excavations in or near the same, without taking the usual precautions, or erecting or displaying the signals ordered by the regulations.

5. Those who shall keep false weights or measures in their shops, stores, manufactories or warehouses, or in markets, halls or fairs, without prejudice to the severer punishments to be inflicted by the tribunals of corréctional police, on those who shall make use of such false weights or measures.

1

6. Those who shall make use of different weights or mea sures than those ordered by law.

7. Those who shall earn their livelihood by divination, telling of fortunes or explaining dreams.

8. All those who shall be concerned in nightly riots, or otherwise by noise or tumult shall disturb the tranquillity of the citizens.

ART. 480. Imprisonment for a period not more than five days, may, according to circumstances be inflicted on the following description of persons, to wit:

1. Those who shall occasion the death or wounding of beasts or cattle, belonging to others, in the cases mentioned in the third paragraph of the present article-2. The possessors of false weights or measures-3. Those who make use of weights or measures different from those ordered by the laws which are now or shall be hereafter in force-4. Fortunetellers and interpreters of dreams-5. Those concerned in nightly riots, noises or disturbances.

ART. 481. The following articles shall be confiscated:-1. All false weights or measures and all weights or measures different from such as are established by law-2. The instruments and costume or habiliments serving or intended to serve for the trade of a conjuror.

ART. 482. Imprisonment for a term not more than five days, shall always be inflicted on the persons and in the instances mentioned in art. 479, in the case of a repetition of the contravention.

ART. 483. A repetition obtains when the party guilty of a contravention, has within the twelve months next preceding his last offence, been convicted of another, which though not precisely the same, is yet of the description of those provided against by the present book and cognisable by the police, and which is committed within the same jurisdictional limits.

General rule.

ART. 484. In every case which has not been regulated by the present code, of crimes, offences and contraventions, the courts and tribunals shall continue to observe and cause to be executed the provisions of the laws and regulations now in force.

70

FRENCH STATE PAPERS.

ADDRESS

Delivered by his Imperial Majesty, Napoleon, to the council of commerce in Paris, 31st March, 1811.

The decrees of Berlin and Milan, are the fundamental laws of my empire. For the neutral navigation, I consider the flag as an extension of territory. The power which suffers its flag to be violated cannot be considered as neutral.

The fate of the American commerce will soon be decided. I will favour it, if the United States conform themselves to these decrees. In a contrary case, their vessels will be driven from my empire.

The commercial relations with England must cease. I tell it to you very loudly. Gentlemen merchants who have any business to settle, and funds to withdraw, ought to do it as soon as possible. I gave that advice to the inhabitants of Antwerp, and they profited by it.

I wish for peace, but not on a frail foundation. I wish for it in good faith, and such that it will offer sufficient guarantees, because I do not lose sight of Amiens or St. Domingo, nor the losses that commerce has experienced by the declaration of war. I should not have made the peace of Tilsit. I should have gone to Vilna and further, had it not been for the promise of the emperor of Russia, to bring about a peace between England and France. Previous to the reunion of Holland, I made overtures of peace, but the English ministry did not even listen to them. The continent will be shut against the importation from England. I am armed cap à pie! to inforce the execution of my orders and to frustrate the intentions of the English in the Baltic. There exists yet some fraud, but it shall be destroyed. I know the dealers in English commerce; those who think only of escaping the laws, and those who by extravagant speculations have become bankrupts; but if they succeed in evading my officers of the customs, my sword will reach them sooner or later, in three, four, five or six months; then they cannot complain.

I listen to what is said on the part of the merchants. I know that they censure loudly my measures; they say that I am badly advised. I cannot blame them nor be angry at their opinion, bebecause they are not placed in a situation to see and to calculate as I do. Those who have lately arrived from England, and who have seen the effect the interruption of the continental commerce had in that country, cannot help saying that it is possible I may be right, and that I may at last succeed in my undertakings! In my empire the commerce of the interior or of exchange is above fourteen milliards [equal 10 fourteen thousand millions of Francs.] It is on this basis that its sources and its prosperity ought to be combi

ned. I know that Bordeaux, Hamburg, and other seaports, suffer by: the interruption of maritime trade. The late municipal regulations made by the emperor of Russia, have hurt the manufactory of Lyons. These are individual losses, I will try to mitigate them. The exportation for Russia, which did not exceed twenty-five millions, when the profits on the total amount did not exceed two per cent. cannot impede or change the general system.

Russia has got a large paper medium; Austria also; England is overrun with it. France is the richest country on the globe; her territorial resources are immense.-She has money in abundance. From a late report there has arrived in France upwards of one milliard [one thousand millions of francs] by war contributions. I have two hundred millions in my private chest in the Thuilleries. I receive nine millions of impositions paid in crowns, of which a very small proportion only proceeds from maritime commerce. I am told that by late experiments, France can do without the sugar and the indigo of the Indies. I will encourage those means of industry.

Chemistry has of late made such wonderful progress that it is possible it will operate as great a revolution, and as extraordinary in the commercial relations as was occasioned by the discovery of the loadstone.

I do not say that I do not want maritime commerce, but we must abandon it for the moment, and until England returns to just and reasonable principles, or until I can dictate to her the conditions of a peace.

If I was heir to the throne of Louis XV, or XVI, I should be obliged to go on my knees to beg a peace, but I have succeeded to the emperors of France. I have united to my empire the mouths of the greatest rivers of the Adriatic. Nothing can prevent me from building a fleet of two hundred sail of the line, arm, and man them.

I know the English have better admirals, it is a great advantage; but by fighting we will learn to vanquish them. If we lose one, two, or three battles, we will gain the fourth, by this simple and natural reason, that who are the strongest will vanquish the weakest.

I had no thought that the market of South America would have been so soon glutted with the English manufactures, but I have calculated on the nullity of the return. The continental markets being shut up, the English will be obliged to throw into the Thames the sugar and indigo which they have exchanged for the objects of their industry, which furnishes them with such immense

resources.

Here, as well as in England, the manufacturers have been very imprudent; they did not calculate with accuracy the consumption of their manufactures. The English government has been obliged to contribute to their manufacturers' distresses; and I have also granted some, and might have done a great deal more, but I did not think it convenient, nor did I think it was prudent to encourage principles as bad as they are dangerous. It is hot enough to

be able to manufacture, one ought to have and to know the means of selling them, and ought not to manufacture ten ells of cloth when four are only wanted. It was not hard to see that after twenty years of war and revolutions, the consumption of the continent ought to have diminished, and that a great many persons who used to have four coats a year could not have more than two or perhaps one.

Commerce is honourable, but its basis is prudence and economy. You must be prudent, gentlemen; the merchant ought not to gain his fortune as we gain a battle; he ought to gain a little at a time, and that little constantly."

Answer of his Majesty the French Emperor and King, to the Address of the Deputation from the cities of Hamburg and Bremen. Paris, March 20th, 1811.

"Gentlemen, deputies of the Hanse Towns of Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck. You formed part of the Germanic empire; your constitution terminated with its existence. Since that time your situation was uncertain. I intended to reconstitute your cities under an independent administration; when the changes produced in the new world by the new laws of the British council rendered the project impracticable. It was impossible for me to give you an independent administration, since you could no longer have an independent flag.

The decrees of Berlin and Milan are the fundamental laws of my empire; they cease only to have effect as to those nations which defend their sovereignty, and maintain the religion of their flag. England is in a state of blockade as to those nations which submit to the orders of 1806, because the flags thus submitting to the English laws are denationalized-they are English. Those nations, on the contrary, which feel their own dignity, and find in their courage and power sufficient resources to disregard the blockade, and to approach all the ports of my empire, except those under real blockade, according to the known usage and the stipulations of the treaty of Utrecht, may hold communication with England. As to them England is not blockaded. The decrees of Berlin and Milan flowing from the nature of things, shall continue to form the public code of my empire, as long as England maintains her orders in council of 1806 and 1807, and violates the stipulations of the treaty of Utrecht upon this subject.

England acts upon the principle of seizing the enemy's merchandise, under whatever flag it might be. The empire has been compelled to admit the principle of seizing English merchandise, or proceeding against the commerce of England, in whatever territory it may be. England seizes in every sea the passengers, merchants, and carriers, belonging to the nations she is at war with. France is compelled to seize the English travellers, merchants, and carriers, in whatever part of the continent they may be, and wherever she can reach them: and if in this system there be any thing little consonant to the spirit of the age, it is the injustice of the new English laws that must be charged with it.