IF the Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809, irritated Napoleon,
Macon’s Act of May 1, 1810, might be expected to work in a manner still
more active.
The story has shown that Napoleon, toward the end of the year 1809,
felt many difficulties in giving new shape to his American policy after
it had been ruined by the Non-intercourse Act. His fixed idea required
the seizure of every American ship in Europe beyond the borders of
France, as he had for years seized American ships in his own ports. In
part this wish sprang from the Continental system, and was excused to
some extent by the plea that American commerce could be carried on only
under British protection; in part the seizure of American ships was a
punishment for defying the Emperor’s orders; and in part it was due to
his necessities of finance.
December 19, 1809, Napoleon wrote a brief order to Berthier, ordering
the seizure of all American vessels in the Spanish ports within his
control;[161] vessels and cargoes, he said, were to be considered good
prize. Having taken this measure, he called a council of ministers for
the next day, and ordered Maret to bring there “everything relating to
the judgments of the prize-court; to the merchandise sequestered in the
ports, which is spoiling. If you have not all the information, ask the
Minister of Finance.”[162]
The meaning of this preparation was to be sought in the Cabinet
itself, and in the Emperor’s surroundings. Peace with Austria left
many vexations in Napoleon’s path. Perhaps the unhappy situation of
his brother Joseph at Madrid troubled him less than the difficulty of
reconciling the Empress Josephine to a divorce, or the mortifications
of negotiating for a wife among Russian, German, and Austrian
princesses; but annoyances like these, though serious for ordinary
men, could not be compared with the constant trouble created by the
Continental system of commercial restrictions and the want of money it
caused. Threatened with financial difficulties, and obliged to study
economies as well as to press contributions of war, the Emperor found
himself met by something resembling opposition among his own ministers.
As was his habit, he yielded at first to the advice he disliked, and
promised to do something for French industry. In November he appointed
a new Minister of the Interior, Montalivet, and lectured him on the
slowness of his bureaus in acting for the good of commerce.[163] From
such a mouth such a lesson startled the hearer, and Montalivet threw
himself with zeal into the prescribed work. To Fouché the Emperor read
another lecture compared with which the discourse to Montalivet was
commonplace. Fouché, a pronounced opponent of Napoleon’s commercial
restrictions, during the Emperor’s absence in Austria distributed too
freely his licenses for foreign trade: “I recognize always the same
course in your acts,” Napoleon wrote him. “You have not enough legality
in your head.”[164]
While thus teaching one minister to cherish commerce, and another
to respect legality, the Emperor listened to Champagny, who lost no
chance of advising the encouragement of neutral trade; and these three
ministers--Champagny, Fouché, and Montalivet--found a strong ally
in the Minister of the Treasury, Mollien, who has left the recorded
opinion that the Imperial system of commercial restriction was “the
most disastrous and the most false of fiscal inventions.”[165] The bias
of Decrès, the Minister of Marine, may be inferred from a story told
by Marshal Marmont,[166] who, coming to Paris at the close of 1809,
called on his old friend and talked with the enthusiasm of a successful
soldier about the Emperor. “Well, Marmont,” replied Decrès, “you are
pleased at being made a marshal; you see everything in bright colors.
Do you want me to tell you the truth and to unveil the future? The
Emperor is mad--absolutely mad! He will upset us all, and everything
will end in a terrible disaster.” Taken in connection with King Louis’
attitude in Holland, the Cabinet opposition of December, 1809, amounted
to rebellion against Napoleon’s authority.
At the Cabinet council of December 20 Montalivet made a written report
on the subject of American cotton, which threw so much blame on the
Imperial policy as to call a written contradiction from Napoleon.
“An American vessel,” the Emperor replied the next day,[167] “coming
from Louisiana to France will be well received here, no act of the
government forbidding the admission of American ships into French
ports.” The Americans, he explained, had prohibited commerce with
France while permitting it with Holland, Spain, and Naples; and
in consequence “his Majesty has used his right of influence over
his neighbors because he was unwilling that they should be treated
differently from France, and he has sequestered the ships destined for
their ports;” but no such provision had been made against American
ships entering French ports.
Naturally piqued at an Imperial assertion that he had shown ignorance
of facts that deeply concerned his department, Montalivet sent to the
Treasury for information, with which, a few days afterward, he routed
the Emperor from the field. Unable to answer him, Napoleon referred his
report to Gaudin, Minister of Finance, with a curious marginal note,
which showed--what his ministers evidently believed--that the Emperor
understood neither the workings of his own system nor the laws of the
United States:--
“Referred to the Minister of Finance to make me a report on
this question: (1) How is it conceivable that American ships
come from America in spite of the embargo? (2) How distinguish
between ships coming from America and those coming from London?”
Armstrong obtained immediate and accurate knowledge of this struggle
in council. Only a week after the Emperor wrote his note on the
margin of Montalivet’s report, Armstrong sent home a despatch on the
subject:[168]--
“The veil which for some weeks past has covered the proceedings
of the Cabinet with regard to neutral commerce is now so far
withdrawn as to enable us to see with sufficient distinctness
both the actors and the acting. The Ministers of Police and of
the Interior (Fouché and Montalivet) have come out openly and
vigorously against the present anti-commercial system, and have
denounced it as ‘one originating in error and productive only
of evil, and particularly calculated to impoverish France and
enrich her enemy.’ While they have held this language in the
Cabinet they have held one of nearly the same tenor out of it,
and have added (we may suppose on sufficient authority) the
most solemn assurances that the Emperor ‘never meant to do more
than to prevent the commerce of the United States from becoming
_tributary_ to Great Britain; that a new decision would
soon be taken by him on this subject, and that from this the
happiest results were to be expected.’”
As though to prevent President Madison from showing undue elation at
this announcement for the fiftieth time that the happiest results
were to be expected from the future, Armstrong wrote another letter,
four days afterward,[169] on the new confiscations and their cause.
Frenchmen he said would reason thus: “There is a deficit of fifty
millions in the receipts of last year. This must be supplied. Why not
then put our hands into the pockets of your citizens once more, since,
as you continue to be embroiled with Great Britain, we may do it with
impunity.” Armstrong was angry, and could not analyze to the bottom
the Emperor’s methods or motives. Thiers, in later years having the
advantage of studying Napoleon’s papers, understood better the nature
of his genius. “To admit false neutrals in order to confiscate them
afterward, greatly pleased his astute (_rusé_) mind,” wrote the
French historian and statesman,[170] “little scrupulous in the choice
of means, especially in regard to shameless smugglers who violated
at once the laws of their own country and those of the country that
consented to admit them.” This description could not properly be
applied to Americans, since they violated neither their own law nor
that of France by coming to Amsterdam, San Sebastian, and Naples;
but Thiers explained that the Emperor considered all Americans as
smugglers, and that he wrote to the Prussian government: “Let the
American ships enter your ports! Seize them afterward. You shall
deliver the cargoes to me, and I will take them in part payment of the
Prussian war-debt.”[171] Meanwhile the confiscation of American ships
helped in no way the objects promised by Napoleon to Montalivet and
Fouché. At a loss to invent a theory on which neutrals could be at the
same time plundered and encouraged, the Emperor referred the subject
to Champagny, January 10, in an interesting letter.[172] He called for
a complete history of his relations with the United States since the
treaty of Morfontaine. He ordered the recall of Turreau, in whom he
said he had little confidence, and who should be replaced by a more
adroit agent:--
“Have several conferences, if necessary, with the American
minister as well as with the Secretary of Legation who has just
come from London; in short, let me know your opinion on the
measures proper to be taken to get out of the position we are in
(_pour sortir de la position où nous nous trouvons_).”
“All the measures I have taken, as I have said several times,
are only measures of reprisal.... It was only to the new
extension given to the right of blockade that I opposed the
Decree of Berlin; and even the Decree of Berlin ought to be
considered as a Continental, not as a maritime blockade, for it
has been carried out in that form. I regard it, in some sort,
only as a protest, and a violence opposed to a violence.... Down
to this point there was little harm. Neutrals still entered
our ports; but the British Orders in Council necessitated my
Milan Decree, and from that time there were no neutrals.... I
am now assured that the English have given way; that they no
longer levy taxes on ships. Let me know if there is an authentic
act which announces it, and if there is none, let me know if
the fact is true; for once I shall be assured that a tax on
navigation will not be established by England, I shall be able
to give way on many points.”
All Napoleon’s ministers must have known that these assertions of his
commercial policy were invented for a momentary purpose. He had himself
often declared, and caused them to declare, that his Continental
system, established by the Berlin Decree and enforced before the Orders
in Council were issued, had a broad military purpose quite independent
of retaliation,--that it was aimed at the destruction of England’s
commerce and resources. As for his profession of ignorance that England
had abandoned her transit duties on neutral merchandise, every minister
was equally well aware that only six months before, the Emperor had
discussed with them the measures to be taken in consequence of that
abandonment; had sent them the draft of a new decree founded upon it,
and had finally decided to do nothing only because England had again
quarrelled with America over Erskine’s arrangement. The pretexts
alleged by Napoleon were such as his ministers could not have believed;
but they were satisfied to obtain on any grounds the concessions they
desired, and Champagny--or as he was thenceforward called, the Due de
Cadore--sent to Armstrong for the information the Emperor professed to
want.
January 18, M. Petry, at the order of Cadore, called on the American
minister, and requested from him a written memorandum expressing the
demands of his Government. Armstrong drew up a short minute of the
provisions to be made the material of a treaty.[173] The first Article
required the restoration of sequestered property; the next stipulated
that any ship which had paid tribute to a foreign Power should be
liable to confiscation, but that with this exception commerce should
be free. Cadore sent this paper to the Emperor, and within a few hours
received a characteristic reply.
“You must see the American minister,” wrote Napoleon.[174]
“It is quite too ridiculous (_par trop ridicule_) that
he should write things that no one can comprehend. I prefer
him to write in English, but fully and in a manner that we can
understand. [It is absurd] that in affairs so important he
should content himself with writing letters of four lines....
Send by special courier a cipher despatch to America to let it
be understood that that government is not represented here; that
its minister does not know French; is a morose man with whom one
cannot treat; that all obstacles would be raised if they had
here an envoy to be talked with. Write in detail on this point.”
Petry returned to Armstrong with the condemned paper, and received
another, somewhat more elaborate, but hardly more agreeable to the
Emperor. January 25, Cadore himself sent for the American minister, and
discussed the subject. The Emperor, he said, would not commit himself
to the admission of colonial produce; he wished to restrict American
commerce to articles the growth or manufacture of the two countries;
he would not permit his neighbors to carry on a commerce with America
which he denied to himself; but the “only condition required for the
revocation by his Majesty of the Decree of Berlin will be a previous
revocation by the British government of her blockade of France, or part
of France (such as the coast from the Elbe to Brest, etc.), of a date
anterior to that of the aforesaid decree; and if the British government
would then recall the Orders in Council which had occasioned the Decree
of Milan, that decree should also be annulled.” This pledge purported
to come directly from the Emperor, and at Armstrong’s request was
repeated in the Emperor’s exact words.[175]
Neither the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of the Treasury,
nor the Emperor in these discussions alluded to the proposed Decree of
Vienna, the draft of which was sent to Paris in August, confiscating
all American ships in reprisal for the seizures of French ships
threatened by the Non-intercourse Act. Although that decree was the
point which the Emperor meant to reach, not until January 25--when
Champagny, after dismissing Armstrong, reported the interview to
Napoleon, bringing with him at the Emperor’s request the text of the
Non-intercourse Act--did the Emperor at last revert to the ideas of the
Vienna Decree. The long hesitation proved how little satisfactory the
plea of retaliation was; but no other excuse could be devised for a
measure which Napoleon insisted upon carrying out, and which Champagny
had no choice but to execute. The Emperor dictated the draft of a
note,[176] in which the principles of confiscation were to be laid
down:--
“If American ships have been sequestered in France, France only
imitates the example given her by the American government; and
the undersigned recalls to Mr. Armstrong the Act of Congress of
March 1, 1809, which orders in certain cases the sequestration
and confiscation of French ships, excludes them from American
ports, and interdicts France to the Americans. It is in
reprisal of this last provision that the American ships have
been seized in Spain and Naples. The league against England,
which has the cause of neutrals for its object, embraces now
all the Continental peoples, and permits none of them to enjoy
commercial advantages of which France is deprived. France will
permit it in no place where her influence extends; but she is
ready to grant every favor to the ships of a neutral Power which
shall not have subjected themselves to a tribute, and shall
recognize only the laws of their own country, not those of a
foreign government.... If the Minister of the United States has
the power to conclude a convention proper to attain the object
indicated, the undersigned is ordered to give all his care to
it, and to occupy himself upon it without interruption.”
Perhaps this was the only occasion in Napoleon’s life when he stood
between a nation willing to be robbed and a consciousness that to rob
it was a blunder. The draft of his note showed his embarrassment.
Remarkable in many ways, it required special notice in two points. The
proposed Vienna Decree confiscated American ships because French ships
were forbidden under threat of confiscation to enter American ports.
The note of January 25 suggested a variation from this idea. American
ships were to be confiscated everywhere except in France, because they
were forbidden to enter France. As they were also confiscated in France
because they were forbidden to leave America, the Emperor had nothing
more to demand. His reasoning was as convincing as a million bayonets
could make it; but perhaps it was less Napoleonic than the avowal that
for six months the Emperor had been engaged in inveigling American
property into neutral ports in order that he might seize it.
Apparently Cadore still raised obstacles to the Emperor’s will. For
some three weeks he held this note back, and when at last, February
14, he sent it to Armstrong, he made changes which were not all
improvements in the Emperor’s text. Indeed, Napoleon might reasonably
have found as much fault with Champagny as he found with some of his
generals, for failing to carry out the orders he dictated:--
“His Majesty could place no reliance on the proceedings of
the United States, who, having no ground of complaint against
France, comprised her in their acts of exclusion, and since
the month of May have forbidden the entrance of their ports to
French vessels, under the penalty of confiscation. As soon as
his Majesty was informed of this measure, he considered himself
bound to order reprisals on American vessels, not only in his
territory, but likewise in the countries which are under his
influence. In the ports of Holland, of Spain, of Italy, and of
Naples, American vessels have been seized because the Americans
have seized French vessels.”
After such long discussions and so many experiments, Napoleon had
become reckless of appearances when he allowed his foreign secretary
to send this note of Feb. 14, 1810, in which every line was a
misstatement, and every misstatement, as far as concerned America,
was evident in its purpose; while apart from these faults, the note
erred in trying to cover too much ground of complaint against the
United States. Napoleon had, in the projected Decree of Vienna,
ordered retaliation everywhere for the confiscation threatened by the
Non-intercourse Act. Made to feel the impossibility of this course,
he changed his ground, continuing to confiscate American ships in
France under the old Bayonne Decree, and ordering the sequestration of
American ships throughout the rest of Europe on the plea that other
countries must not enjoy a commerce interdicted to France. Cadore’s
note abandoned this ground again, in order to return to the doctrine of
the projected Vienna Decree; and in the effort to give it a color of
reason, he asserted that the Americans had seized French vessels.
Such a letter was a declaration of war six months after beginning
hostilities; and it made no offer of peace except on condition that the
United States should pledge themselves to resist every British blockade
which was not real in the sense defined by Napoleon. Armstrong wrote to
his Government, in language as strong as he could use, that nothing was
to be expected from a policy that had no other foundation than force
or fraud. His angry remonstrances had embroiled him with the Emperor,
and he was on the point of quitting France. Under such circumstances
he did not insist on breaking off further conversations with Petry,
but February 25 he positively assured Petry that neither would the
President and Senate ratify, nor would he himself as negotiator accept,
a treaty in any form which did not provide reparation for the past as
well as security for the future;[177] and March 10 he replied to the
Duc de Cadore in what the Emperor would have called a morose tone,
denying every assertion made in Cadore’s note,--reminding Cadore that
the Emperor had received knowledge of the Non-intercourse Act at the
time of its passage without a sign of protest or complaint; and,
finally, renewing his old, longstanding grievances against “the daily
and practical outrages on the part of France.”[178]
When the Emperor received Armstrong’s letter, which was excessively
strong, and ended in a suggestion that Napoleon was trying to cover
theft by falsehood, he showed no sign of anger, but became almost
apologetic, and wrote to Cadore,[179]--
“Make a sketch of a reply to the American minister. It will be
easy for you to make him understand that I am master to do here
what America does there; that when America embargoes French
ships entering her ports, I have the right to reciprocate.
You will explain to him how that law came to our knowledge
only a short time ago, and only when I had knowledge of it did
I immediately prescribe the same measure; that a few days
before, I was busying myself with provisions for raising the
actual prohibitions on American merchandise, when the course of
commerce (_la voie du commerce_) made known to me that our
honor was involved, and that no compromise was possible; that I
conceive America as entitled to prevent her ships from coming to
England and France; that I approved this last measure, though
there was much to be said about it; but that I cannot recognize
that she should arrogate the right of seizing French ships in
her ports without putting herself in the case of incurring
reciprocity.”
One must answer as one can the question why Cadore, who had in
his hands Armstrong’s letter of April 29, 1809,[180] officially
communicating the Non-intercourse Act, should not have suggested
to Napoleon that some limit to his failings of memory ought to
be observed. Napoleon’s memory was sometimes overtasked by the
mass of details he undertook to carry in his mind, but a striking
incident always impressed itself there. Mme. de Rémusat[181] told
how Grétry, who as member of the Institute regularly attended the
Imperial audiences, was almost as regularly asked by Napoleon, “Who
are you?” Tired at last of this rough question, Grétry replied by
an answer equally blunt: “Sire, toujours Grétry;” and thenceforward
the Emperor never failed to remember him. The United States in a
similar tone recalled their affairs to the Emperor’s memory by the
Non-intercourse Act; but had this “toujours Grétry” not been enough,
Napoleon’s financial needs also made him peculiarly alive to every
event that could relieve them, and his correspondence proved that the
Non-intercourse Act as early as May, 1809, impressed him deeply. Yet in
March, 1810, he not only convinced himself that this Act had just come
to his knowledge, producing in him an outburst of national dignity,
but he also convinced his Minister of Foreign Relations, who knew the
contrary, that these impressions were true, and made him witness them
by his signature.
Acting without delay on the theory of sudden passion, the Emperor
signed, three days afterward, March 23, a decree known as the Decree
of Rambouillet, in which the result of these long hesitations was at
last condensed.[182] This document was a paraphrase of the projected
Decree of Vienna of Aug. 4, 1809; and it showed the tenacity with which
Napoleon, while seeming to yield to opposition, never failed to return
to a purpose and effect its object. In order to carry out the Decree of
Vienna in that of Rambouillet he was forced into a _coup d’état_.
He had not only to expel his brother Louis from Holland, and annex
Holland to France, but also to drive his ablest minister, Fouché, from
the Cabinet.
Of the steps by which he accomplished his objects, something can
be seen in his letters; of his motives, no doubt ever existed.
Armstrong described them in strong language; but his language was
that of a party interested. Thiers recounted them as a panegyric,
and his language was even clearer than Armstrong’s. He made nothing
of the Emperor’s pretence that his seizures were in reprisal for the
Non-intercourse Act. “This was an official reason (_une raison
d’apparat_),” said Thiers.[183] “He was in search of a specious
pretext for seizing in Holland, in France, in Italy, the mass of
American ships which smuggled for the English, and which were within
his reach. He had actually sequestered a considerable number; and
in their rich cargoes were to be found the means of furnishing his
Treasury with resources nearly equal to those procured for him by the
contributions of war imposed on the vanquished.”
The system of treating the United States as an enemy conquered in war
rested on a foundation of truth; and as usual with conquered countries
it met with most resistance, not from them but from bystanders. The
Emperor of Russia, the kings of Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark, the
Hanse Towns, and King Louis of Holland were the chief obstacles to the
success of the scheme to which they were required to be parties. King
Louis of Holland refused to seize the American ships at Amsterdam, and
forced his brother to the conclusion that if nothing else could be
done, Holland must be annexed to France.
For many reasons the annexation of Holland met with little favor in the
Emperor’s family and among his Council. Chief among its opponents was
Fouché, who sacrificed himself in his efforts to prevent it. Driven to
the conviction that nothing but peace with England could put an end to
the Emperor’s experiments on the welfare of France, Fouché resolved
that peace should be made, and invented a scheme for bringing it about.
As Minister of Police he controlled secret means of intrigue, and
probably he acted without concert with his colleagues; but the motives
which guided him were common to almost all Napoleon’s Cabinet. The
only difference between ministers was, that while Cadore, Montalivet,
Mollien, and Decrès stopped their opposition when it became dangerous,
Fouché undertook to act.
Something of this came to Armstrong’s ears. As early as January 10[184]
he reported a remark which he could not understand. “‘Do not believe,’
said a minister to me the other day, ‘that peace between us and England
is impossible. If we offer to her the commerce of the world, can she
resist it?’” Unknown to Armstrong, Napoleon had already made an advance
to England. For this purpose he employed Labouchere, the chief banker
of Holland, whose association with the Barings of London fitted him
to act as an intermediary. The message sent by the Emperor through
Labouchere could hardly be called an offer of terms; it amounted only
to a threat that unless England made peace Holland should be annexed
to France, and every avenue of illicit commerce in northern Europe
should be stopped. In itself this message could hardly serve as ground
for a treaty; but Fouché, without the Emperor’s knowledge, sent to
London at the same time, about January 18, a secret agent named Fagan,
to suggest that if Great Britain would abandon Spain, France would join
in creating from the Spanish-American colonies a monarchy for Ferdinand
VII., and from Louisiana, at the expense of the United States, a
kingdom for the French Bourbons.[185]
This last idea bore on its face the marks of its origin. Fouché had
listened to Aaron Burr, who after years of effort reached Paris, and
presented to the government a memoir showing that with ten thousand
regular troops, and a combined attack from Canada and Louisiana, the
destruction of the United States was certain.[186] The scheme for
placing the Spanish Bourbons on a Spanish-American throne probably came
from the same Ouvrard whom Napoleon imprisoned at Vincennes, and whom
Fouché took into favor.
Labouchere and Fagan went to England, and early in February had
interviews with the British ministers, who quickly dismissed them. The
only impression made on the British government by the double mission
was one of perplexity at the object of an errand which appeared too
absurd for discussion. The two agents returned to the Continent, and
reported the result of their journey. Meanwhile Napoleon ordered
Marshal Oudinot to march his army-corps into Holland, a step which
brought King Louis to immediate submission. “I promise you,” wrote
Louis, “to follow faithfully all the engagements you shall impose upon
me. I give you my word of honor to follow them faithfully and loyally
from the moment I shall have undertaken them.”[187] While Cadore was
still negotiating with Armstrong for an arrangement with America, he
was also employed in framing a treaty with Louis, which exacted the
seizure of all American ships and merchandise in Dutch ports.[188]
Louis came to Paris, and March 16 signed the treaty which by a secret
stipulation provided for the seizure of American property.[189]
Matters stood thus April 1, 1810, when the ceremonies of the Imperial
marriage interrupted for the moment further action. Napoleon had
carried his point in regard to the punishment of America; but the
difficulties he had already met were trifling compared with the
difficulties to come.