Besides petty theft, there was another line of work one could pursue: smuggling.
Under the conventions of nineteenth-century international law, blockading a port counted as a blockade. Yet along the long coastline, there were still many landing points. Like that little village they had visited before, a single small boat was enough.
Where there was demand, there was a market. Not everyone could afford expensive cloth for clothing, and even if the Consulate issued a guideline price, everyone would pretend it did not exist.
It was a legal gray area, but there would certainly be people willing to take the risk, unless wages were raised. Even then, there would still be people who scrimped and saved.
Frederick the Great had once said that building roads merely made it easier for other people's armies to invade you.
Road-building itself also served a military purpose. Replacing grain carts with cannons did not change the load they could carry.
The money the British made from the Belgians could also make up for the deficit caused by the previous war. This was another source of revenue after income tax had been suspended.
Georgiana was not foolish enough to believe that William Pitt the Younger had truly abandoned his original plans and no longer regarded France as a threat. War would definitely break out again. Perhaps tax resistance could delay it.
Negotiating on behalf of a nation was naturally not so simple. There were many ways to bleed someone dry, and tariffs were not the only one. When the Methuen Treaty had been signed, Portugal had believed that it would grant them greater tariff privileges than Bordeaux wine from France.
Catherine the Great had not earned the title of "the Great" merely because she had said, "If I can live to two hundred, all of