But on the whole, the British had less
trouble with neutrals than did Napoleon. And compared with the
prodigious hardships which the System imposed upon the Continental
peoples and the consequent storms of popular opposition to its author,
the contemporaneous distress in England was never acute; and the
British nation at large never seriously wavered in affording moral and
material support to their hard-pressed government.
Here was the failure of Napoleon. It proved physically impossible for
him to extend the Continental System widely and thoroughly enough to
gain his point. In many cases, to stave off opposition, he authorized
exceptions to his own decrees. If he could have prevailed upon every
Continental state to close its ports to British goods simultaneously
and for several successive years, he would still have been confronted
with a difficult task to prevent smuggling and the bribery of customs
officials, which reached large proportions even in France and in the
surrounding states that he had under fairly effective control.
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