By July 1810 Napoleon appreciated that the Continental System was not working as he had hoped, but rather than scrap it altogether he decided to modify it, introducing ‘Le Nouveau Système’, which permitted the selling of special licences that allowed certain individuals and companies to trade with Britain in a number of named products. The sale of these was open to abuse – Bourrienne skimmed off a vast fortune selling them in Hamburg, for example – and rife with accusations of favouritism.
