<P> And what is true of a shopkeeper is true of a shopkeeping nation . </P> <P> Napoleon would have been correct in seeing the United Kingdom as essentially a commercial and naval rather than a land based power, but during his lifetime it was fast being transformed from a mercantile to an industrial nation, a process which laid the basis for a century of British hegemony after the Battle of Waterloo . Although the UK had half the population of France during the Napoleonic Wars, there was a higher per capita income and, consequently, a greater tax base, necessary to conduct a prolonged war of attrition . The United Kingdom's economy and its ability to finance the war against Napoleon also benefitted from the Bank of England's issuance of inconvertible banknotes, a "temporary" measure which remained from the 1790s until 1821 . </P>

Who said england is a nation of shopkeepers