Later today Nick and I are talking to Robert Colvile about Britain’s exit from the EU. He wrote a great piece in CapX earlier this week about the people leading the “leave” and “stay” campaigns. I’m going to ask him, in particular, about an article in Der Spiegel about the EU’s strategy to keep Britain in the fold.
In the meantime, do you remember hearing the phrase “A nation of shopkeepers”? It was the phrase Napoleon supposedly used, derisively, about England. I thought of it when reading this reader note below:
Thank you Dan, awesome Capital and Conflict email today: educational, stimulating, controversial and shining a light in the dimmer corners of our world. I especially liked the range, from Korean nukes to the Thirty Years War.
As an amateur student of the Napoleonic era, I am interested in the way European geopolitics has evolved. Napoleon, a deeply flawed genius, tried to impose a single order throughout Europe. But his “Continental System’ was essentially frustrated by northern European merchants / smugglers as well as the British banking system and American commerce.
Interestingly, when prevented from trading with Britain, it was the European traders who found ways to circumvent it; Britain’s trade with the rest of the world meant the impact was limited. Watch out the Europhiles and the banker-bashers!
(BTW I love Europe and adore France.)
Keep up the good work!
Giles
Thanks Giles. One good argument for leaving the EU – which needs proving of course – is that Britain’s trade with the rest of the world would flourish once it was unshackled from the EU. The “stay” campaign suggests that Britain would have trouble negotiating bi-lateral trade deals with the US and China. And that Britain’s trade with the EU, as a nation outside the EU, would suffer.
All are fair arguments. But they’re arguments. No one can be certain. We’ll be taking up more of those arguments in the future. But for now, a note in praise of commerce!
Voluntary trade among free people, along with the division of labour, is the single best way humanity has ever discovered to make people richer and freer. That’s why enterprising people always find a way. And that’s why Napoleon must surely have intended his quip as a compliment and not a slight.
There is some doubt that Napoleon ever uttered those words. But the story gets better. Allow me to introduce you to Barry Edward O’Meara. He was an Irish surgeon on board the HMS Bellerophon when Napoleon surrendered to the British on 15 July, 1815. O’Meara accompanied Napoleon to his exile on St Helena and there reported back to British authorities.
The former emperor
In 1822, O’Meara published a book called Napoleon in Exile: or a Voice from St Helena. In that book he produces an extraordinary quote from the former emperor. If it’s not true, it should be. That is, even if he Napoleon didn’t say, it’s the best way of showing the virtue, even the nobility, of being a nation of shopkeepers. Here are the words O’Meara puts in Napoleon’s mouth:
Your meddling in continental affairs, and trying to make yourselves a great military power, instead of attending to the sea and commerce, will yet be your ruin as a nation. You were greatly offended with me for having called you a nation of shopkeepers. Had I meant by this, that you were a nation of cowards, you would have had reason to be displeased; even though it were ridiculous and contrary to historical facts; but no such thing was ever intended.
I meant that you were a nation of merchants, and that all your great riches, and your grand resources arose from commerce, which is true. What else constitutes the riches of England? It is not extent of territory, or a numerous population. It is not mines of gold, silver, or diamonds. Moreover, no man of sense ought to be ashamed of being called a shopkeeper.
But your prince and your ministers appear to wish to change altogether l’esprit of the English, and to render you another nation; to make you ashamed of your shops and your trade, which have made you what you are, and to sigh after nobility, titles and crosses; in fact to assimilate you with the French… You are all nobility now, instead of plain old Englishmen.
Category: Brexit