THE effect of American conciliation upon Canning was immediate
and simple; but the effect of American defiance upon Napoleon will be
understood only by those who forget the fatigue of details in their
interest for Napoleon’s character. The Emperor’s steps in 1809 are not
easily followed. He was overburdened with labor; his motives and policy
shifted as circumstances changed; and among second-rate interests he
lost more habitually than ever the thread of his own labyrinth.
Travelling day and night from Spain in January, 1809, with the same
haste and with something of the same motive as when four years
afterward he posted back to Paris from his Russian disaster, Napoleon
appeared unexpectedly at his capital January 24. The moment was one of
crisis, but a crisis of his own making. He had suffered a political
check in Spain, which he had but partially disguised by a useless
campaign. The same spirit of universal dominion which grasped at Spain
and required the conquest of England, roused resistance elsewhere
almost as desperate as that of the Spaniards and English. Even the
American Congress repealed its embargo and poured its commerce through
so-called neutral ports into the lap of England, while at the same
moment Austria, driven to desperation, prepared to fight for a fourth
time. Napoleon had strong reasons for choosing that moment to force
Austria wholly into his system. Germany stood at his control. Russia
alone could have made the result doubtful; but the Czar was wholly
French. “M. Romanzoff,” wrote Armstrong to the State Department,[99]
“with the fatalism of the Turk, shakes his head at Austria, and asks
what has hitherto been got by opposition; calls to mind the fate of
Prussia, and closes by a pious admonition not to resist the will of
God.”
Toward Austria the Emperor directed all his attention, and rapidly
drove her government into an attitude of resistance the most spirited
and the most desperate taken by any people of Europe except Spain.
Although Austria never wearied of fighting Napoleon, and rarely fought
without credit, her effort to face, in 1809, a Power controlling the
military resources of France, Italy, and Germany, with the moral
support of Russia behind them, had an heroic quality higher than was
shown at any time by any other government in Europe. April 9 the
Austrian army crossed the Inn, and began the war. April 13 Napoleon
left Paris for the Danube, and during the next three months his hands
were full. Austria fought with an energy which put Germany and Russia
to shame.
Such a moment was ill suited for inviting negotiation on American
affairs; but Armstrong received instructions a few days after
Napoleon left Paris, and with these instructions came a copy of the
Non-intercourse Act of March 1, which, while apparently forbidding
intercourse with England and France, notified Napoleon that the United
States would no longer obey his wishes, or keep their industries
from seeking a British market through indirect channels. Armstrong
communicated this Act to the French government in the terms of his
instructions:[100]--
“The undersigned is instructed to add that any interpretation of
the Imperial Decrees of Nov. 21, 1806, and Dec. 17, 1807, which
shall have the effect of leaving unimpaired the maritime rights
of the Union, will be instantaneously followed by a revocation
of the present Act [as regards France] and a re-establishment of
the ordinary commercial intercourse between the two countries.”
May 17 Champagny, then at Munich, having received Armstrong’s letter of
April 29, notified the Minister of Marine,[101]--
“The news of this measure having received an official character
by the communication made to me by the United States minister
on the part of his Government, I think it my duty to transmit to
your Excellency a copy of the law which he has addressed to me.”
Armstrong informed Secretary Robert Smith[102] that nothing need
be expected from this step, unless it were perhaps his own summary
expulsion from France as a result of offence given either by the
Non-intercourse Act or by the language of Armstrong’s despatches
surreptitiously published. Bitterly as Armstrong detested Napoleon,
he understood but little the mind and methods of that unusual
character. Never in his career had the Emperor been busier than when
Armstrong wrote this note to Champagny, but it caught his attention
at once. He had fought one battle after another, and in five days had
captured forty thousand men and a hundred pieces of cannon; he had
entered Vienna May 10, and had taken his quarters at Schönbrunn, the
favorite palace of the Austrian emperor. There he was in a position
of no little difficulty, in spite of his military successes, when his
courier brought him despatches from Paris containing news that the
United States, March 1, had repealed the embargo, and that the British
government, April 26, had withdrawn the Orders in Council of November,
1807, and had substituted a mere blockade of Holland, France, and
Italy. The effect of these two events was greatly increased by their
coming together.
At first Napoleon seemed to feel no occasion for altering his course.
After reading Armstrong’s letter, he dictated May 18 a reply which was
to serve as the legal argument to justify his refusal of concessions.
His decrees were founded on eternal principles, and could not be
revoked:--
“The seas belong to all nations. Every vessel sailing under the
flag of any nation whatever, recognized and avowed by it, ought
to be on the ocean as if it were in its own ports. The flag
flying from the mast of a merchantman ought to be respected as
though it were on the top of a village steeple.... To insult a
merchant-vessel carrying the flag of any Power is to make an
incursion into a village or a colony belonging to that Power.
His Majesty declares that he considers the vessels of all
nations as floating colonies belonging to the said nations. In
result of this principle, the sovereignty and independence of
one nation are a property of its neighbors.”[103]
The conclusion that the sovereignty and independence of every nation
were the property of France, and that a floating colony denationalized
by the visit of a foreign officer became the property of Napoleon,
involved results too extreme for general acceptance. Arbitrary as the
Emperor was, he could act only through agents, and could not broach
such doctrines without meeting remonstrance. His dissertation on the
principles of the _jus gentium_ was sent May 18 to Champagny. Four
days afterward, May 22, Napoleon fought the battle of Essling, in which
he lost fifteen or twenty thousand men and suffered a serious repulse.
Even this absorbing labor, and the critical situation that followed,
did not long interrupt his attention to American business. May 26,
Champagny made to the Emperor a report[104] on American affairs,
taking ground altogether different from that chosen by Napoleon.
After narrating the story of the various orders, decrees, blockades,
embargoes, and non-intercourse measures, Champagny discussed them in
their practical effect on the interests and industries of France:--
“The fact cannot be disguised; the interruption of neutral
commerce which has done much harm to England has been also a
cause of loss to France. The staple products of our territory
have ceased to be sold. Those that were formerly exported are
lost, or are stored away, leaving impoverished both the owner
who produced them and the dealer who put them on the market. One
of our chief sources of prosperity is dried up. Our interest
therefore leads us toward America, whose commerce would still
furnish an ample outlet for several of our products, and
would bring us either materials of prime necessity for our
manufactures, or produce the use of which has become almost a
necessity, and which we would rather not owe to our enemies.”
For these reasons Champagny urged the Emperor not to persist in
punishing America, but to charge M. d’Hauterive, the acting Minister of
Foreign Relations at Paris, with the duty of discussing with General
Armstrong the details of an arrangement. Champagny supported his advice
by urging that England had made advances to America, had revoked
her orders of November, 1807, and seemed about to turn the French
Decrees against France. “It will always be in your Majesty’s power to
evade this result. A great step to this end will be taken when Mr.
Armstrong is made aware that your Majesty is disposed to interpret your
commercial decrees favorably for the Americans, provided measures be
taken that no tribute shall be paid to England, and that their efficacy
shall be assured. Such will be the object of M. d’Hauterive’s mission.”
Napoleon, impressed by Champagny’s reasoning, fortified by the news
that Erskine had settled the commercial disputes between England and
America, sent to Champagny the draft of a new decree,[105] which
declared that inasmuch as the United States by their firm resistance to
the arbitrary measures of England had obtained the revocation of the
British Orders of November, 1807, and were no longer obliged to pay
imposts to the British government, therefore the Milan Decree of Dec.
17, 1807, should be withdrawn, and neutral commerce should be replaced
where it stood under the Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806.
This curious paper was sent June 10 to Paris for a report from
the Treasury as to its probable effects. June 13 Champagny sent
instructions to Hauterive[106] directing him to begin negotiation with
Armstrong. Far from overlooking either the intention or the effect
of the Non-intercourse Act, Champagny complained that it was unfair
to France and “almost an act of violence;” but he did not resent it.
“The Emperor is not checked by this consideration; he feels neither
prejudice nor resentment against the Americans, but he remains firm in
his projects of resisting British pretensions. The measures taken by
England will chiefly decide his measures.” Champagny explained that the
Emperor hesitated to issue the new decree already forwarded for the
inspection of the customs authorities, not because any change had taken
place in the reasons given for its policy, but because the arrangement
of Erskine was said to be disavowed.
“What has prevented the Emperor till now from coming to a
decision in this respect is the news contained in the English
journals of an arrangement between England and America, and
announced by a Proclamation of the President of the United
States, April 19, 1806. If from this act should result the
certainty that the English renounce their principle of blockade,
then the Emperor would revoke the whole of his measures relative
to neutral commerce. But the ‘Gazette de France’ of June 5, for
I have no other authority, pretends that the British ministry
refuse to sanction the arrangement concluded in America; and
the result of all this is an extreme uncertainty, which prevents
a decision as to the course proper to be taken.”
This was the situation of the American dispute June 13, 1809, at
Vienna, at the moment Canning’s disavowal of Erskine became certain.
Thus far Napoleon’s mind had passed through two changes,--the first,
in consequence of the British Order in Council of April 26, which
led him to decide on withdrawing the Milan Decree; the second, in
consequence of Erskine’s arrangement, which led him to promise America
everything she asked. The news of Canning’s refusal to carry out the
arrangement stopped Napoleon short in his career of concession; he left
the American affair untouched until after the battle of Wagram, July 6,
which was followed by the submission of Austria, July 12. The battle
of Wagram placed him in a position to defy resistance. Immediately
afterward he sent orders to Paris to stop Hauterive’s negotiation.
About the middle of July Hauterive told the American minister “that a
change had taken place in the views of the Emperor; and in particular
that a decree prepared by his orders as a substitute for those of
November, 1806, and December, 1807, and which would have been a very
material step toward accommodation, had been laid aside.”[107]
In the heat and fury of the battle of Wagram this order must have been
given, for it was known at Paris only one week afterward, and Armstrong
reported the message, July 24, as a notice that unless America resisted
the British doctrines of search and blockade she need expect no
relaxation on the part of Napoleon; while this notice was supported by
a menace that until the Emperor knew the President’s decision he would
take no step to make matters worse than they already were.[108]
If Armstrong put trust in this last promise or menace, he showed once
more his want of sympathy with the Emperor’s character. Quick to yield
before an evident disaster, Napoleon was equally quick to exhaust the
fruits of an evident victory; and the advantage he had obtained over
the United States was as decided, if not as extensive, as that which
he had gained over Austria. In one way or another America must pay for
rebellion, and she could be made to pay only by the usual process of
seizing her commerce.
June 7, while the Emperor was still hesitating or leaning to
concession, Decrès, his Minister of Marine, wrote to him that an
American schooner with a cargo of colonial produce had arrived at
San Sebastian May 20, and that more such vessels must be expected to
arrive, since the Non-intercourse Act had opened the trade to Spanish
ports. What should be done with them? The French Decrees denationalized
every vessel which went to England, or wished to go there, or had
been visited by an English cruiser, or had violated the laws of the
United States, or had incurred suspicion of fraud; but the schooner in
question was under no suspicion of fraud,--she had not been to England,
nor had she ever thought of going there; she had not been stopped by
any cruiser; she was in a Spanish port, nominally outside of French
jurisdiction, and she was authorized in going there by the law of
the United States. Here was an unforeseen case, and Decrès properly
referred it to the Emperor.[109]
Decrès’ letter reached Vienna about June 13, the day when Champagny
described the Emperor as vexed by an extreme uncertainty on American
affairs. The subject was referred to the Minister of Finance. No
decision seems to have been reached until August. Then Maret, the
Secretary of State in personal attendance on the Emperor, created Duc
de Bassano a few days later, enclosed to Champagny, August 4, the draft
of a new decree,[110] which was never published, but furnished the clew
to most of the intricate movements of Napoleon for the following year:--
“Napoleon, etc.,--considering that the American Congress by its
Act of March 1, 1809, has forbidden the entrance of its ports to
all French vessels under penalty of confiscation of ships and
cargo,--on the report of our Minister of Finance have decreed
and decree what follows:--
“Art. 1. The American schooner loaded with colonial produce and
entered at San Sebastian the 20th May, 1809, will be seized and
confiscated.
“Art. 2. The merchandise composing the cargo of the vessel
will be conveyed to Bayonne, there to be sold, and the produce
of the sale paid into the _caisse de l’amortissement_
(sinking-fund).
“Art. 3. Every American ship which shall enter the ports of
France, Spain, or Italy will be equally seized and confiscated,
as long as the same measure shall continue to be executed in
regard to French vessels in the harbors of the United States.”
Probably the ministers united in objecting to a general confiscation
founded on the phrase of a penalty which the customs laws of every
country necessarily contained. Whatever the reason, this draft rested
in the files of the office over which Champagny presided, and the
Emperor seemed to forget it; but its advantages from his standpoint
were too great to be lost, and its principle was thenceforward his
guide.
Not even Armstrong, suspicious as he was of Napoleon’s intentions,
penetrated the projected policy; yet Armstrong was by no means an
ordinary minister, and his information was usually good. At the moment
when he received what he supposed to be the promise that Napoleon would
not make matters worse until he heard what the President had to say,
Armstrong warned his Government that this assurance was intended as a
menace rather than as a pledge:[111]--
“What will satisfy him on even these points, particularly the
former, is not distinctly explained. Our creed on this subject
is one thing; that of the British government another; and the
French doctrine of visit, a third. When we speak of illegal
search, we mean that which claims the right of impressment also;
but according to the imperial decrees and their commentators,
the offence is equally great whatever may be the object of the
visit,--whether it be to demand half your crew, or to ascertain
only the port from which you sailed, the nature of your cargo,
or the character of your flag. This is pushing things to a point
whither we cannot follow them, and which, if I do not mistake,
is selected because it is a point of that description.”
Before the month of August, Napoleon reverted more energetically than
ever to his old practice and policy. Within Armstrong’s reach remained
only one influence strong enough to offer a momentary resistance to
imperial orders, and thither he turned. The kingdom of Holland was
still nominally independent, and its trade an object of interest.
While England shaped her policy to favor the licensed or smuggling
trade with Dutch ports, the United States risked their relations with
England and France by treating Holland as an independent neutral.
Yet the nominal independence of Holland was due only to the accident
that had made Louis its king, as it had made his brother Joseph king
of Spain,--not wholly with a view to please them, but also to secure
obedience to Napoleon’s orders and energy to his system. No one would
willingly deprive any member of Napoleon’s family of virtues which the
world allowed them; yet none but a Bonaparte thoroughly understood a
Bonaparte, and Napoleon’s opinion of his brothers, as their opinions
of him, stand highest in authority. Napoleon was often generous and
sometimes forbearing with his brothers, and left them no small freedom
to seek popularity at his expense; but they were nothing except as they
represented him, and their ideas of independence or of philanthropy
showed entire misunderstanding of their situation. Of all Napoleon’s
brothers, Louis was the one with whom he was most reasonably offended.
Lucien at least did not wait to be made a king before he rebelled; but
Louis accepted the throne, and then intrigued persistently against the
Emperor’s orders. From the moment he went to Holland he assumed to be
an independent monarch, devoted to winning popularity. He would not
execute the Berlin Decree until Napoleon threatened to march an army
upon him; he connived at its evasion; he issued licenses and admitted
cargoes as he pleased; and he did this with such systematic disregard
of remonstrance that Napoleon became at last angry.
July 17, some days after the battle of Wagram, the Emperor wrote from
Vienna to Louis,[112]--
“You complain of a newspaper article; it is France that has a
right to complain of the bad spirit which reigns with you.... It
may not be your fault, but it is none the less true that Holland
is an English province.”
At the same time he ordered Champagny to notify the Dutch government
officially that if it did not of its own accord place itself on the
same footing with France, it would be in danger of war.[113]
While this correspondence was still going on, Armstrong imagined that
he might obtain some advantage by visiting Holland. He amused himself
during the idle August by a journey to Amsterdam, where he obtained,
August 19, a private interview with King Louis. Three days before,
Flushing had capitulated to the English expedition which was supposed
to be threatening Antwerp. At Vienna Napoleon was negotiating for
peace, and between the obstinacy of Austria and the British attacks on
Madrid and Antwerp he found himself ill at ease. President Madison had
just issued his Proclamation of August 9 reviving the Non-intercourse
Act, which kept open the American trade with Holland. Everywhere the
situation was confused, irritable, and hard to understand. A general
system of cross-purposes seemed to govern the political movements of
the world.
King Louis told Armstrong that he was quarrelling seriously with the
Emperor on account of the American trade, but was bent on protecting
it at all hazards. This declaration to a foreign minister accredited
not to himself but to his brother, showed Louis attempting with the
aid of foreign nations a systematic opposition to Napoleon’s will.
He denounced his brother’s system as “the triumph of immorality over
justice.... The system is bad,--so bad that it cannot last; but in
the mean time we are the sufferers.” Even the British expedition to
Walcheren troubled Louis chiefly because it forced him under his
brother’s despotism. “It is an erring policy, and will have no solid
or lasting effect but that of drawing upon us a French army which will
extinguish all that is left of ancient Holland. Can it be wisdom in
England to see this country a province of France?”
With such comfort as Armstrong could draw from the knowledge that
Napoleon’s brothers were as hostile as President Madison to the
imperial system, he returned to Paris, September 6, to wait the further
development of the Emperor’s plans. He found on his arrival two notes
from Champagny at Vienna. One of these despatches expressed a civil
hope, hardly felt by the Emperor,[114] that Armstrong would not for the
present carry out his project of returning to America. The other, dated
August 22, was nothing less than a revised and permanent form of the
Emperor’s essay on the _jus gentium_, which Champagny since May
18 had kept in his portfolio.[115]
In Champagny’s hands Napoleon’s views lost freshness without gaining
legality. The “village steeple” disappeared, but with some modification
the “floating colony” remained, and the principle of free seas was
carried to its extreme results:--
“A merchant-vessel sailing with all the necessary papers
(_avec les expéditions_) from its government is a floating
colony. To do violence to such a vessel by visits, by searches,
and by other acts of an arbitrary authority is to violate the
territory of a colony; this is to infringe on the independence
of its government.... The right, or rather the pretension, of
blockading by a proclamation rivers and coasts, is as monstrous
(_révoltante_) as it is absurd. A right cannot be derived
from the will or the caprice of one of the interested parties,
but ought to be derived from the nature of things themselves. A
place is not truly blockaded until it is invested by land and
sea.”
Every one could understand that to assert such principles was an
impossibility for neutrals, and was so meant by Napoleon. He had no
thought of making demands which England could accept. The destruction
of her naval power was his favorite object after the year 1805. The
battle of Wagram confirmed him in his plan, and Louis’ opposition
counted for even less than Armstrong’s diplomacy in checking the energy
of his will. As he ordered Louis, so he ordered Madison, to obey; and
thanks to the obstinacy of Spencer Perceval, both had no choice but to
assist his scheme. As an answer to the American offer expressed in the
Non-intercourse Act, Champagny’s despatch of August 22 was final; but
to preclude a doubt, it closed by saying that the ports of Holland, of
the Elbe and the Weser, of Italy and of Spain, would not be allowed to
enjoy privileges of which French ports were deprived, and that whenever
England should revoke her blockades and Orders in Council, France would
revoke her retaliatory decrees.
Without suicide, England could hardly accept the principles required
by this note; nor had she reason to suppose that her acceptance would
satisfy Napoleon’s demands. As though to encourage her in obstinacy,
the note was printed in the “Moniteur” of October 6, by the Emperor’s
order, before it could have reached America. This unusual step served
no purpose except to give public notice that France would support
England in restricting American rights; it strengthened the hands of
Spencer Perceval and took away the last chance of American diplomacy,
if a chance still existed. Yet neither this stroke nor the severity
foreshadowed by the secret Decree of Vienna was the only punishment
inflicted by Napoleon on the United States for the Non-intercourse Act
and Erskine’s arrangement.
The principle of the Vienna Decree required confiscation of American
commerce in retaliation for penalties imposed on French ships that
should knowingly violate the Non-intercourse Act. Although this
rule and the Bayonne Decree seemed to cover all ordinary objects
of confiscation, the Emperor adopted the supplementary rule that
American merchandise was English property in disguise. In the month
of November a cotton-spinner near Paris, the head of a very large
establishment, petitioned for leave to import about six hundred
bales of American cotton. His petition was returned to him with the
indorsement: “Rejected, as the cotton belongs to American commerce.”
The severity of the refusal surprised every one the more because the
alternative was to use Portuguese--that is to say English--cotton,
or to encourage the consumption of fabrics made wholly in England,
of English materials.[116] Having decided to seize all American
merchandise that should arrive in France on private account, and having
taken into his own hands the business of selling this property as well
as of admitting other merchandise by license, Napoleon protected what
became henceforward his personal interests, by shutting the door to
competition.[117] Armstrong caught glimpses of this stratagem even
before it had taken its finished shape.
“I am privately informed,” wrote Armstrong December 10, “that
General Loison has left Paris charged to take hold of all
British property, or property suspected of being such in the
ports of Bilbao, San Sebastian, Pasages, etc. The latter part
of the rule is no doubt expressly intended to reach American
property. With the General goes a mercantile man who will be
known in the market as his friend and protégé, and who of course
will be the exclusive purchaser of the merchandise which shall
be seized and sold as British. This is a specimen at once of the
violence and corruption which enter into the present system;
and of a piece with this is the whole business of licenses, to
which, I am sorry to add, our countrymen lend themselves with
great facility.”
Under such conditions commerce between the United States and France
seemed impossible. One prohibition crowded upon another. First came
the Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806, which turned away or confiscated
every American vessel voluntarily entering a British port after that
date. Second, followed the Milan Decree of Nov. 11, 1807, which
denationalized and converted into English property every American
ship visited by a British cruiser or sent into a British port, or
which had paid any tax to the British government. Third, the Bayonne
Decree of April 5, 1808, sequestered all American vessels arriving
in France subsequent to the embargo, as being presumably British
property. Fourth, the American Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809,
prohibited all commerce with France or her dependencies. Fifth, the
British Orders in Council of April 26, 1809, established a blockade
of the whole coast of France. Sixth, the secret Decree of Vienna, of
August, 1809, enforced in principle, sequestered every American vessel
arriving within the Emperor’s military control, in reprisal for the
Non-intercourse Act which threatened French ships with confiscation.
Yet with all this, and greatly to General Armstrong’s displeasure,
American ships in considerable numbers entered the ports of France,
and, what was still more incomprehensible, were even allowed to leave
them.