Background
The United Kingdom was an important force in encouraging and financing alliances against Napoleonic France. In addition, the British government enacted a naval blockade of the French and French-allied coasts, on the 16 May 1806.
Napoleon didn't have the resources to attempt an invasion of the United Kingdom or to decisively defeat the Royal Navy at sea. Napoleon resorted instead to economic warfare. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain was emerging as Europe's manufacturing and industrial centre, and Napoleon believed it would be easy to take advantage of an embargo on trade with the European nations under his control, causing inflation and great debt.
Read more about this topic: Continental System
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“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
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“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)