Antwerp, the main seaport in Belgium nowadays was considered by the French of great importance and to be used as a main naval base. On the naval shipyard are indeed in the French time ships-of-the-line built. In his book dealing with the French emperor Napoleon, count De Las Cases gives some interesting notes dealing with the French intentions, especially considered the thoughts of Napoleon about Antwerp. Napoleon attended the launching in 2 May 1810 of the ship-of-the-line Friedland at Antwerp.
p. 48: “The works which had been completed in so short a time at Antwerp, the numerous dock-yards, magazines, and canals, were already the subject of admiration; but all this the Emperor [Napoleon] declared to be nothing. Antwerp was a yet, he said, merely a commercial town; the military town was to be constructed on the opposite bank of the rover [Scheldt]. For this purpose, ground had been purchased at a low rate, and it was to have been sold again at a high profit for the purpose of building; so that by this speculation, the expenses attending the enterprise would have been considerably diminished. The winter docks would have been capable of admitting three-deck ships with all their guns on board; and covered dry docks were to have been constructed for laying up vessels in time of peace”.
p. 60-62: “The immense works at Antwerp-This town, which is nearly twenty leagues distant from the sea [North Sea], from which is separated by a winding road; seemed to be divested of every desirable advantage for the formation of a maritime arsenal; and it had hitherto presented only petty commercial establishments. A fleet raised at Antwerp would with difficulty, have been able to descend the river, and would have been but ill defended against the inclemencies of the weather, or the attempts of the enemy. It would have been useless during one third of the year; for the approach of winter forced the ships to come higher up, to avoid the current and ice of the river; there being no floating basins. But these numerous difficulties seemed as nothing in the eyes of napoleon. In his impatience to make the English feel the dangers if the Scheldt, which they had themselves so frequently acknowledged to be formidable, he speedily converted his plans, and in less than eight years Antwerp assumed the aspect of an important maritime arsenal; and a considerable fleet was already riding in the Schelde. Every thing was done thoroughly and completely. Magazines, quays, dock-yards, & were newly constructed. A provision asylum was assigned for the shipping in the Rupel, while two great floating basins were dig in the town of Antwerp; capable of receiving vessels of every size; with all their guns on board. Twenty slips for building, were raised on a line, as if by enchantment, and twenty vessels, lying in these slips at once, presented to the traveller, arriving by the Tête de Flanders, the imposing and singular spectacle of twenty vessels of the line, ranged as a squadron. Most of these works, however, Napoleon regarded merely as a provision momentarily borrowed from commerce. He intended to establish a complete and much larger arsenal facing Antwerp, on the bank of the river, opposite to the Tête de Flandres.”
Source
Memorial de Sainte Hélène. Journal of the private life and conservations of the emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena by the count [Emmanuel] de las Cases, vol. IV, London, 1823. Digitalized version.
