Napoleon set out, April 27, with his new Empress on a wedding journey
to Holland. In the course of his journey an accident revealed to him
the secret correspondence which Fouché had conducted through Fagan
with the British government. Nothing criminal was alleged, nor was it
evident that the Minister of Police had acted contrary to the Emperor’s
admitted wishes; but since the fall of Talleyrand, Fouché alone had
considered himself so necessary to the Imperial service as to affect
independence, and the opportunity to discipline him could not be lost.
June 3 he was disgraced, and exiled to Italy. General Savary, Duc de
Rovigo, succeeded him as Minister of Police.
The fate of King Louis was almost equally swift. When he returned to
Holland after promising entire submission and signing the treaty of
March 16, he could not endure the disgrace of carrying his pledges
into effect. He tried to evade the surrender of the American ships,
and to resist the military occupation of his kingdom. He showed
public sympathy with the Emperor’s opponents, and with riotous
popular proceedings at Amsterdam. Once more the Emperor was obliged
to treat him as an enemy. June 24 the French troops were ordered
to occupy Amsterdam, and July 3 Louis, abdicating his throne, took
refuge in Germany. July 8 Napoleon signed a Decree annexing Holland to
France.[190]
The United States at the same time received their punishment for
opposing the Imperial will. The Decree of Rambouillet, though signed
March 23, was published only May 14, when the sequestrations previously
made in Holland, Spain, Italy, and France became in a manner legalized.
The value of the seizures in Holland and Spain was estimated by the
Emperor in arranging his budget for the current year as follows:[191]
American cargoes previously seized at Antwerp, two million dollars;
cargoes surrendered by Holland, two million four hundred thousand
dollars; seizures in Spain, one million six hundred thousand dollars.
In this estimate of six million dollars the seizures in France,
Denmark, Hamburg, Italy, and Naples were not included. The American
consul at Paris reported to Armstrong that between April 1809 and April
1810 fifty-one American ships had been seized in the ports of France,
forty-four in the ports of Spain, twenty-eight in those of Naples,
and eleven in those of Holland.[192] Assuming an average value of
thirty thousand dollars, these one hundred and thirty-four American
ships represented values exceeding four millions. Adding to Napoleon’s
estimate of six millions the Consul’s reported seizure of seventy-nine
ships in France and Naples, a sum of nearly $8,400,000 was attained. In
this estimate the seizures at Hamburg, in Denmark, and in the Baltic
were not included. On the whole the loss occasioned to Americans could
not be estimated at less than ten millions, even after allowing for
English property disguised as American. The exports from the United
States during the six months after the embargo amounted to fifty-two
million dollars,[193] exclusive of the ships; and as England offered a
less profitable market than the Continent, one fifth of this commerce
might easily have fallen into Napoleon’s hands. Twenty years afterward
the government of France paid five million dollars as indemnity for
a portion of the seizures, from which Napoleon by his own account
received not less than seven millions.
Profitable as this sweeping confiscation was, and thoroughly as
Napoleon overbore opposition in his family and Cabinet, such measures
in no way promised to retrieve the disaster his system suffered from
the defection of America. While England protected American ships in
their attempts to counteract his system in Spain, Holland, and in the
Baltic, the Emperor regarded American trade as identical with British,
and confiscated it accordingly; but by doing so he exhausted his means
of punishment, and since he could not march armies to New York and
Baltimore as he marched them to Amsterdam and Hamburg, he could only
return on his steps and effect by diplomacy what he could not effect by
force. The Act of March 1, 1809, was a thorn in his side; but the news
which arrived toward the end of June, 1810, that Congress had repealed
even that slight obstacle to trade with England made some corrective
action inevitable. The Act of May 1, 1810, struck a blow at the Emperor
such as no Power in Europe dared aim, for it threw open to British
trade a market in the United States which would alone compensate
England for the loss of her trade with France and Holland. Macon’s Act
made the Milan Decree useless.
Napoleon no sooner learned that Congress had renewed intercourse
with England and France, than he wrote an interesting note[194] to
Montalivet dated June 25, the day after he ordered his army to seize
Amsterdam.
“The Americans,” he said, “have raised the embargo on their
ships so that all American ships can leave America to come to
France; but those which should come here would be sequestered,
because all would either have been visited by English ships or
would have touched in England. It is therefore probable that no
American ship will come into our ports without being assured of
what France means to do in regard to them.”
France could evidently do one of three things,--either avowedly
maintain her decrees, or expressly revoke them, or seem to revoke them
while in fact maintaining them. The process by which Napoleon made his
choice was characteristic.
“We may do two things,” he continued,--“either declare that the
Decrees of Berlin and Milan are repealed, and replace commerce
where it formerly was; or announce that the Decrees will be
repealed September 1, if on that date the English have repealed
the Orders in Council. Or the English will withdraw their Orders
in Council, and then we shall have to ascertain whether the
situation that follows will be advantageous to us.”
Assuming that the decrees and orders were withdrawn, and American ships
admitted as neutrals, the Emperor explained how he should still enforce
his system as before:--
“This situation will have no influence on the customs
legislation, which will always regulate arbitrarily duties
and prohibitions. The Americans will be able to bring sugar
and coffee into our ports,--the privateers will not stop them
because the flag covers the goods; but when they come into a
port of France or a country under the influence of France, they
will find the customs legislation, by which we shall be able
to say that we do not want the sugar and coffee brought by the
Americans because they are English merchandise; that we do not
want tobacco, etc.; that we do not want such or such goods,
which we can as we please class among prohibited goods. Thus it
is evident that we should commit ourselves to nothing.”
Again and again, orally and in writing, in the presence of the whole
Council and in private to each minister, the Emperor had asserted
positively and even angrily that “all the measures I have taken, as
I have said several times, are only measures of reprisal;” yet after
assuming that his reprisals had succeeded, and that England had
withdrawn her orders as France should have withdrawn her decrees, he
told Montalivet, as though it were a matter of course, that he should
carry out the same system by different means. This method of fighting
for the rights of neutrals differed but little, and not to advantage,
from the British method of fighting against them.
The Emperor put his new plan in shape. He proposed to recognize neutral
rights by issuing licenses under the name of permits for a score of
American vessels, and for the introduction of Georgia cotton, the
article for which Montalivet made his long struggle. This measure was
to be so organized that the shipments could take place only in a single
designated port of America, only with certificates of origin delivered
by a single French consul also to be designated; that the ship could
enter only at one or two designated ports of France; that independently
of the certificates of origin a cipher-letter should be written to the
Minister of Foreign Relations by the consul who should have given them;
finally, that the ships should be required to take in return wines,
cognac, silks, and other French goods for the value of the cargo.
Deep was Armstrong’s disgust when an Imperial Decree[195] appeared,
dated July 15, authorizing licenses for thirty American ships to sail
from Charleston or New York under the rigorous conditions detailed by
this note; but the thirty licenses were merely a beginning. Once having
grasped the idea that something must be done for French industry,
the Emperor pressed it with his usual energy and with the usual
results. During the months of June and July, while annexing Holland
to his empire, he worked laboriously on his new commercial system.
He created a special Council of Commerce, held meetings as often as
twice a week, and issued decrees and orders by dozens. The difficulty
of understanding his new method was great, owing to a duplication
of orders not unusual with him; the meaning of a public decree was
affected by some secret decree or order not made public, and as never
failed to happen with his civil affairs, the whole mass became confused.
Apparently the new system[196] rested on a decree of July 25, 1810,
which forbade any ship whatever to leave a French port for a foreign
port without a license; and this license, in the Emperor’s eyes, gave
the character of a French ship to the licensed vessel,--“that is to
say, in two words, that I will have no neutral vessel; and in fact
there is none really neutral,--they are all vessels which violate the
blockade and pay ransom to the English.” In other words the Emperor’s
scheme was founded on his Berlin and Milan Decree and left them intact
except within the operation of the licenses. “For these [licensed]
ships,” he said,[197] “the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are null and
void; ... my licenses are a tacit privilege of exemption from my
decrees, on condition of conforming to the rules prescribed by the
said licenses.” The licenses themselves were classified in thirty
different series,[198]--for the ocean, the Mediterranean, England,
etc.,--and prescribed the cargoes to be carried both on the inward
and outward voyages.[199] They made no distinction between neutrals
and enemies; the license that authorized a voyage from London was the
same, except for its scries, as that which covered a cargo of cotton
from Charleston; and such distinction as appeared, was limited to
imposing on the neutral additional trouble to prove that his goods
were not English. In theory the import of such British merchandise
as would relieve England’s distress was forbidden, and the export of
French merchandise was encouraged, not only in order to assist French
industry, but also in order to drain England of specie. Especially the
sugar, coffee, and cotton of the colonies were prohibited; but when
captured by privateers or confiscated on land, colonial produce was
first admitted to the custom-house at a duty of fifty per cent, and
then sold for the benefit of the Imperial treasury.
This system and tariff Napoleon imposed on all the countries subject to
his power, including Switzerland, Naples, Hamburg, and the Hanse Towns;
while he exerted all his influence to force the same policy on Prussia
and Russia. As far as concerned the only neutral, the United States,
the system classified American ships either as English when unlicensed,
or as French when licensed; it imposed Imperial functions inconsistent
with local law on the French consuls in America, and violated both
international and municipal law only to produce another form of the
Berlin and Milan Decrees, in some respects more offensive than the
original.
The character and actions of Napoleon were so overpowering that history
naturally follows their course rather than the acts of the undecided
and unenergetic governments which he drove before him; and for this
reason the replies made by Secretary Robert Smith to the flashes of
Imperial temper or policy have not hitherto been noticed. In truth,
Secretary Smith made no attempt to rival Napoleon in originality or
in vigor of ideas or expression. Neither his genius nor that of
Madison shone bright in the lurid glare of the Emperor’s planet. When
Champagny’s letter of Aug. 22, 1809, reached Washington with its novel
views about floating colonies, rights of search, identity of blockade
with siege, and warning of confiscations in Holland, Spain, and Italy,
President Madison, replying through Robert Smith, Dec. 1, 1809,
contented himself with silence in regard to the threats, and with a
mild dissent from the Emperor’s exposition of the _jus gentium_.
“However founded the definition of M. Champagny may be in reason and
general utility, and consequently however desirable to be made the
established law on the subject of blockades, a different practice has
too long prevailed among all nations, France as well as others, and is
too strongly authenticated by the writers of admitted authority, to be
combated by the United States.”
A touch of Madison’s humor brightened the monotony of these
commonplaces, but was not granted the freedom which the subject
might have allowed. The President felt no wish to dwell on what was
unreasonable or violent in Napoleon’s conduct. He passed lightly
over the floating colony, ignored the threatened seizure of American
commerce, and fastened on the closing paragraph of Champagny’s note,
which promised that if England would revoke her blockades, the decrees
of France should fall of themselves. This proposition, defined by
Champagny and commented by Armstrong, required that England should
admit the whole doctrine of floating colonies and siege-blockades.
Madison knew it to be impracticable and deceptive; but he was not bound
to go beyond the letter of the pledge, and although he declined to
admit Napoleon among those “writers of admitted authority” whose law
prevailed among nations, he instructed Armstrong to act without delay
in the sense of Champagny’s suggestion.
“You will of course,” wrote Secretary Smith to Armstrong, Dec.
1, 1809, “understand it to be wished that you should ascertain
the meaning of the French government as to the condition on
which it has been proposed to revoke the Berlin Decree. On the
principle which seems to be assumed by M. Champagny, nothing
more ought to be required than a recall by Great Britain of her
proclamation or illegal blockades which are of a date prior to
that of the Berlin Decree, or a formal declaration that they are
not now in force.”[200]
January 25, 1810, Armstrong asked Cadore the question thus dictated,
and received for answer that the Emperor required only the revocation
of the British blockades as a condition of recalling the Decree of
Berlin,--a reply which Armstrong communicated the same day to Minister
Pinkney at London. No further instructions from Washington seem to
have reached the United States Legation at Paris until news arrived
that on May 1 the Non-intercourse Act had been repealed. No official
information of the repeal was received by Armstrong, but an American
who brought despatches from Pinkney in London brought also a printed
copy of the Act of May 1, 1810. In the want of official advices,
probably July 9, Armstrong communicated the Act of May 1 to the Duc
de Cadore in the unofficial form of a newspaper. Cadore replied that
being so entirely unofficial, it could not be made the ground-work of
any government proceeding;[201] but he took it to the Emperor, and
Armstrong waited for some striking exhibition of displeasure.
From that moment Armstrong’s relations with Cadore became mysterious.
Something unrecorded passed between them, for, July 19 Napoleon ordered
Cadore to write to the French ambassador at St. Petersburg a message
for the American minister at that Court:[202]--
“Charge the Duc de Vicence to tell Mr. Adams that we have here
an American minister who says nothing; that we need an active
man whom one can comprehend, and by whose means we could come to
an understanding with the Americans.”[203]
For three weeks Napoleon made no decision on the subject of the
American Act; then, after settling the annexation of Holland, he wrote
to Cadore July 31:[204]--
“After having much reflected on the affairs of America, I have
thought that to repeal my Decrees of Berlin and Milan would have
no effect; that it would be better for you to make a note to Mr.
Armstrong by which you should let him know that you have put
under my eyes the details contained in the American newspaper;
that I should have liked to have a more official communication,
but that time passes, and that,--since he assures me we may
regard this as official,--he can consider that my Decrees of
Berlin and Milan will have no effect, dating from November 1;
and that he is to consider them as withdrawn in consequence
of such Act of the American Congress, on condition that (_à
condition que_) if the British Council does not withdraw its
Orders of 1807, the United States Congress shall fulfil the
engagement it has taken to re-establish its prohibitions on
British commerce. This appears to me more suitable than a decree
which would cause a shock (_qui ferait secousse_) and would
not fulfil my object. This method appears to me more conformable
to my dignity and to the seriousness of the affair.”
The Emperor himself, August 2, dictated the letter,--the most
important he ever sent to the United States government. During the
next three days he made numerous changes in the draft; but at last it
was signed and sent to the American Legation.[205] Upon that paper,
long famous as Cadore’s letter of Aug. 5, 1810, turned the course
of subsequent events; but apart from its practical consequences the
student of history, whether interested in the character of Napoleon
or of Madison, or in the legal aspects of war and peace, or in the
practice of governments and the capacity of different peoples for
self-government, could find few examples or illustrations better suited
to his purpose than the letter itself, the policy it revealed, and the
manner in which it was received by the United States and Great Britain.
Cadore began by saying that he had communicated to the Emperor the
newspaper containing the Act of Congress of May 1. The Emperor could
have wished that all the acts of the United States government which
concerned France had always been officially made known to him:--
“In general, he has only had indirect knowledge of them after a
long interval of time. From this delay serious inconveniences
have resulted which would not have existed had these acts been
promptly and officially communicated.
“The Emperor applauded the general embargo laid by the United
States on all their vessels, because that measure, if it
has been prejudicial to France, had in it at least nothing
offensive to her honor. It has caused her to lose her colonies
of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Cayenne; the Emperor has not
complained of it. He has made this sacrifice to the principle
which has determined the Americans to lay the embargo.... The
Act of March 1 [1809] raised the embargo and substituted for
it a measure the most injurious to the interests of France.
This Act, of which the Emperor knew nothing until very lately,
interdicted to American vessels the commerce of France at the
time it authorized that to Spain, Naples, and Holland,--that is
to say, to the countries under French influence,--and denounced
confiscation against all French vessels which should enter the
ports of America. Reprisal was a right, and commanded by the
dignity of France,--a circumstance on which it was impossible
to make a compromise (_de transiger_). The sequestration
of all the American vessels in France has been the necessary
consequence of the measure taken by Congress.”
This preamble, interesting for the novelty of its assertions both
of fact and law, led to the conclusion that the Act of May 1, 1810,
was a retreat from the Act of March 1, 1809, and warranted France in
accepting the offer extended by both laws to the nation which should
first “cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States.”
“In this new state of things,” concluded Cadore, “I am
authorized to declare to you, sir, that the Decrees of Berlin
and Milan are revoked, and that after November 1 they will cease
to have effect,--it being understood (_bien entendu_) that
in consequence of this declaration the English are to revoke
their Orders in Council, and renounce the new principles of
blockade which they have wished to establish; or that the United
States, conformably to the Act you have just communicated, cause
their rights to be respected by the English.”
No phraseology could have more embarrassed President Madison, while,
as Napoleon had remarked to Montalivet a few days before, “it is
evident that we commit ourselves to nothing.”[206] So closely was the
Imperial promise imitated from that given by Erskine that the President
could hardly reject it, although no American merchant would have
risked so much as a cargo of salt-fish on a pledge of such a kind from
such a man. As though to warn the Americans, Napoleon added personal
assurances that gave to the whole proceeding an unpleasant air of
burlesque:--
“It is with the most particular satisfaction, sir, that I make
known to you this determination of the Emperor. His Majesty
loves the Americans. Their prosperity and their commerce are
within the scope of his policy. The independence of America
is one of the principal titles of glory to France. Since that
epoch the Emperor is pleased in aggrandizing the United States;
and under all circumstances that which can contribute to the
independence, to the prosperity, and to the liberty of the
Americans the Emperor will consider as conformable with the
interests of his Empire.”
One might doubt whether Napoleon or Canning were the more deficient in
good taste; but Americans whose nerves were irritated to fury by the
irony of Canning, found these expressions of Napoleon’s love rather
absurd than insulting. So little had the mere fact of violence to
do with the temper of politics, compared with the sentiments which
surrounded it, that Napoleon could seize without notice ten million
dollars’ worth of American property, imprisoning the American crews
of two or three hundred vessels in his dungeons, while at the same
instant he told the Americans that he loved them, that their commerce
was within the scope of his policy, and as a climax avowed a scheme to
mislead the United States government, hardly troubling himself to use
forms likely to conceal his object; yet the vast majority of Americans
never greatly resented acts which seemed to them like the exploits of
an Italian brigand on the stage. Beyond doubt, Napoleon regarded his
professions of love and interest not as irony or extravagance, but as
adapted to deceive. A few weeks earlier he sent a message to the Czar
of Russia, who asked him to disavow the intention of restoring the
kingdom of Poland. “If I should ever sign,” replied Napoleon,[207] “a
declaration that the kingdom of Poland shall never be restored, it
would be for the reason that I intended to restore it,--a trap I should
set for Russia;” and in signing a declaration to the President that his
decrees were repealed, he set a trap for the United States, which he
baited with professions of love that to a more refined taste would have
seemed fatal to his object.
This mixture of feline qualities,--energy, astuteness, secrecy, and
rapidity,--combined with ignorance of other natures than his own, was
shown in the act with which he concluded his arrangements of Aug.
5, 1810. About a fortnight before, by a secret decree dated July
22, 1810,[208] he had ordered the proceeds of the American cargoes
seized at Antwerp and in Dutch and Spanish ports, valued by him at
six million dollars, to be turned into the Treasury as a part of his
customs revenue devoted to the service of 1809–10. In French ports he
held still some fifty ships in sequestration. Cadore’s letter of August
5 mentioned these ships as sequestered,--a phrase implying that they
would be held subject to future negotiation and decision, liable to be
returned to their owners; yet on the same day Napoleon signed another
secret decree[209] which condemned without hearing or judgment all the
ships and cargoes declared to be still in sequestration by the letter
that could hardly have yet been sent from Cadore’s office. Every vessel
which had arrived in French ports between May 20, 1809, and May 1,
1810, suffered confiscation by this decree, which further ordered that
the American crews should be released from the dungeons where they were
held as prisoners of war, and that from August 5 to November 1, 1810,
American ships should be allowed to enter French ports, but should not
discharge their cargoes without a license.
The Decree of August 5 was never made public. Armstrong indeed
employed the last hours of his stay in Paris in asking whether the
French government meant to admit further negotiation about these
seizures,[210] and Cadore replied that the law of reprisals was
final;[211] but when Albert Gallatin, as minister at Paris some
ten years afterward, happened to obtain a copy of the document,
he expressed his anger at its secrecy in language such as he used
in regard to no other transaction of his public life. “No one can
suppose,” he wrote,[212] “that if it had been communicated or published
at the same time, the United States would with respect to the promised
revocation of the Berlin and Milan Decrees have taken that ground which
ultimately led to the war with Great Britain. It is indeed unnecessary
to comment on such a glaring act of combined injustice, bad faith, and
meanness as the enacting and concealment of that decree exhibits.”
These epithets would not have disturbed Napoleon. Politics were to
him a campaign, and if his opponents had not the sense to divine his
movements and motives, the disgrace and disaster were none of his.
More mysterious than the conduct of Napoleon was that of Armstrong.
Contenting himself with whatever the Emperor ordered, he refrained in
his despatches from saying more than was necessary for the record.
He protected himself from Napoleon’s personal attack by sending to
the Duc de Cadore an undated letter,[213] referring to the archives
of Cadore’s department for proof that every public measure of the
United States had been promptly and officially communicated to the
French government; but he wrote home no report of any conference with
Cadore, he expressed no opinion as to the faith of the Emperor’s
promise, made no further protest against the actual reprisals, and
required no indemnity for past spoliations. In fact, no action was
asked from him; but he lent himself readily to the silence that was
needed. Cadore reported[214] to the Emperor that Armstrong “before
his departure wishes to open (_engager_) none of those difficult
questions which he foresees must rise between the two governments, in
order to arrive in America without having seen the fading of the glory
he attaches to having obtained the Note of August 5.” Too happy in
the good fortune that threw an apparent triumph into his hands at the
moment when he was ending his diplomatic career in disgust, he felt
anxious only to escape before another turn of the wheel should destroy
his success. He remained in Paris more than a month after receiving
Cadore’s letter of August 5, but reserved for a personal interview
whatever information he had to give the President; and his letters,
like his despatches, expressed no inconvenient opinions. Sept. 12,
1810, his long and extremely interesting mission ended, and he quitted
Paris on his homeward journey, leaving the Legation in charge of
Jonathan Russell of Rhode Island. Armstrong’s last official act was to
write from Bordeaux a letter to Pinkney at London, declaring that the
conditions imposed by Napoleon on the repeal of his decrees were “not
_precedent_, as has been supposed, but _subsequent_.”[215]