APRIL 1, 1811, Monroe took charge of the State Department. The
first person to claim his attention was the French Emperor, and Monroe
had reasons for knowing that diplomatists of reputed sagacity found use
for uninterrupted attention when they undertook to deal with Napoleon.
Monroe stood in a situation of extreme difficulty, hampered not only
by the pledges of his own government, but still more by the difficulty
of dealing at all with the government of France. When Armstrong
quitted Paris in September, 1810, being obliged to fix upon some
American competent to take charge of the legation at Paris, he chose
Jonathan Russell. The selection was the best he could make. Jonathan
Russell possessed advantages over ordinary ministers coming directly
from America. A native of Rhode Island, educated at Brown University,
after leaving college he followed the business of a merchant, and in
November, 1809, sailed from Boston in a ship of his own, which arrived
at Tönning in Denmark only to be at once sequestered under Napoleon’s
Decrees. He passed several months in efforts to recover the property,
and acquired experience in the process. About forty years old, and
more or less acquainted with the people, politics, and languages of
Europe, he was better fitted than any secretary of legation then abroad
for the burden that Armstrong had found intolerable; yet the oldest and
ablest diplomatist America ever sent to Europe might have despaired
of effecting any good result with such means as were at the disposal
of this temporary agent, who had not even the support of a direct
commission from the President.
Russell felt the embarrassment of the position he was called to fill.
Armstrong departed September 12, bearing Cadore’s promise that the
decrees should cease to operate November 1, and saying as little as
possible of a condition precedent. The 1st of November came, and
Russell asked the Duc de Cadore whether the revocation had taken place;
but a month passed without his receiving an answer. December 4, 1810,
Russell wrote to the Secretary of State,[294]--
“No one here except the Emperor knows if the Berlin and Milan
Decrees be absolutely revoked or not; and no one dares inquire
of him concerning them. The general opinion of those with whom
I have conversed on the subject is that they are revoked. There
are indeed among those who entertain this opinion several
counsellors of State; but this is of little importance, as the
construction which the Emperor may choose to adopt will alone
prevail.”
At about the same time Russell wrote to Pinkney at London a letter[295]
expressing the opinion that, as the decrees had not been executed for
one entire month against any vessel arriving in France, this fact
created a presumption that the decrees were repealed. He could not be
blamed for an opinion so cautious, yet he was mistaken in committing
himself even to that extent, for he learned a few days afterward that
two American vessels had been seized at Bordeaux, and he found himself
obliged to write the Duc de Cadore a strong remonstrance on the ground
that as this was the first case that had occurred since November
1 to which the decrees could have applied, the seizures created
a presumption that the decrees were not repealed.[296] Russell’s
instructions from America, including the President’s proclamation of
November 2, arrived three days later, December 13, requiring him to
assume the revocation of the decrees; but only two days after receiving
them, he read in the “Moniteur” of December 15 Cadore’s official report
to the Emperor declaring that the decrees would never be revoked as
long as England maintained her blockades; and again, December 17, he
found in the same newspaper the Count de Semonville’s official address
before the Senate, declaring that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan
should be the “palladium of the seas.”
Yet Russell’s position was not quite so desperate as it seemed.
Certainly the decrees were not revoked; but he had a fair hope of
obtaining some formal act warranting him in claiming their revocation.
Although Napoleon’s motives often seemed mysterious except to men
familiar with his mind, yet one may venture to guess, since guess
one must, that he had looked for little success from the manœuvre
of announcing the revocation of his decrees as concerned the United
States. Perhaps he dictated Cadore’s letter of August 5 rather in order
to prevent America from declaring war against himself than in the
faith that a trick, that to his eye would have been transparent, could
effect what all his efforts for ten years past had failed to bring
about,--a war between the United States and Great Britain. The Emperor
showed certainly almost as lively surprise as pleasure, when December
12 he received the President’s proclamation of November 2, reviving
the non-intercourse against England. His pleasure was the greater when
he learned that President Madison had adopted his suggestion not only
in this instance, but also in requiring of England the withdrawal of
Fox’s blockade of 1806 as a _sine qua non_ of any future renewal
of commerce. Delighted with his success, not only did the Emperor take
no offence at the President’s almost simultaneous proclamation for the
seizure of West Florida, but rather his first impulse was to lose not
a moment in fixing Madison in his new attitude. He wrote a hurried
letter[297] on the instant to Cadore, ordering him if possible to send
fresh instructions to Serurier, who was already on his way to succeed
Turreau as French minister at Washington:--
“Send me the draft of a despatch for M. Serurier, if he is still
at Bayonne.... You will show in this letter the satisfaction I
have felt in reading the last letters from America. You will
give the assurance that if the American government is decided
to maintain the independence of its flag, it will find every
kind of aid and privileges in this country. Your letter will
of course be in cipher. In it you will make known that I am
in no way opposed to the Floridas as becoming an American
possession; that I desire, in general, whatever can favor
the independence of Spanish America. You will make the same
communication to the American _chargé d’affaires_, who will
write in cipher to his Government that I am favorable to the
cause of American independence; and that as we do not found our
commerce on exclusive pretensions, I shall see with pleasure the
independence of a great nation, provided it be not under the
influence of England.”
This hasty note still throws out flashes of the fire that consumed
the world. Silent as to the single question that America wanted him
to answer, the Emperor not only resumed his old habit of dangling
the Floridas before the President’s eyes, but as though he were glad
to escape from every Spanish tie, he pressed on Madison the whole of
Spanish America. Once more one is reduced to guess at the motive of
this astonishing change. No one knew better than Napoleon that the
independence of Spanish America could benefit England alone; that
England had fought, intrigued, and traded for centuries to bring this
result about, and that the United States were altogether unable to
contest English influence at any point in Central and South America.
He knew, too, that the permanent interests of France could only be
injured by betraying again the Spanish empire, and that nothing could
exceed the extravagance of intriguing for the revolt of Mexico and
Peru while his armies were exhausting themselves in the effort to make
his own brother King of Spain. Such sudden inconsistencies were no new
thing in Napoleon’s career. The story of the Floridas repeated the
story of Louisiana. As in 1803 Napoleon, disgusted with his failure at
St. Domingo, threw Louisiana to Jefferson, so in 1810, disgusted with
his failure at Madrid, he threw Spanish America in a mass to Madison.
What was more serious still, as in 1803 Germany could foresee that she
must pay on the Rhine for the losses of France at St. Domingo and New
Orleans, so in 1810 the Czar Alexander already could divine that the
compensation which Napoleon would require for Mexico and Peru would
lie somewhere in the neighborhood of Poland. Thus much at least had
been gained for the United States and England. Napoleon took no more
interest in the roads to Lisbon and Cadiz, and studied only those that
led to Wilna, Moscow, and St. Petersburg.
Read in this sense, Napoleon’s instructions to Cadore and Serurier told
most interesting news; but on the point likely to prove a matter of
life and death to Madison, the Emperor spoke so evasively as to show
that he meant to yield nothing he could retain. He ordered Cadore to
talk with Jonathan Russell about commercial matters:--
“Have a conference with this _chargé d’affaires_ in order
to understand thoroughly what the American government wants. You
will tell him that I have subjected ships coming from America
to certain formalities; that these formalities consist of a
letter in cipher, joined with licenses, which prove that the
ship comes from America and has been loaded there, but that
I cannot admit American ships coming from London, since this
would upset my system; that there is no way of knowing the fact
[of their American character], and that there are shipowners
who for mercantile objects foil the measures of the American
government; in short, that I have made a step; that I will wait
till February 2 to see what America will do, and that in the
mean time I will conduct myself according to circumstances,
but so as to do no harm to ships really coming from America;
that the question is difficult, but that he should give the
positive assurance to his Government of my wish to favor it in
everything; that he knows, moreover, that several ships coming
from America since the last measures were known have obtained
permission to discharge their cargoes in France; finally,
that we cannot consider as American the ships convoyed to the
Baltic, which have double papers, etc. It would be well if you
could engage this _chargé_ to answer you by a note, and
to agree that he disowns the American ships which navigate the
Baltic. This would be sent to Russia, and would be useful. In
general, employ all possible means of convincing this _chargé
d’affaires_, who I suppose speaks French, of the particularly
favorable disposition I feel toward the Americans; that the real
embarrassment is to recognize true Americans from those who
serve the English; and that I consider the step taken by the
American government as a first step taken toward a good result.”
When Napoleon used many words and became apologetic, he was least
interesting, because his motives became most evident. In regard to
America, he wished to elude an inconvenient inquiry whether the
Berlin and Milan Decrees were or were not revoked. Consequently he
did not mention those decrees, although credulity itself could not
have reconciled his pledge to wait until February 2, with his official
assertion of August 5 that the decrees would be withdrawn on November
1. Such a course was fatal to Madison, for it forced him to appear as
accepting the Berlin and Milan Decrees after so long protesting against
them. So justly anxious was the President to protect himself from this
risk, that in sending to Russell the Non-intercourse Proclamation
of November 2 he warned the _chargé_ against the doctrine of a
condition precedent involved in Cadore’s “bien entendu.” The Emperor
was to understand that the United States acted on the ground that
“bien entendu” did not mean “condition precedent.”[298] “It is to be
remarked, moreover, that in issuing the Proclamation, it has been
presumed that the requisition ... on the subject of the sequestered
property will have been satisfied.”
December 13, at the moment when Napoleon was writing his instructions
to Cadore, Jonathan Russell was reading the instructions of
President Madison. No diplomatist could have found common ground on
which to reconcile the two documents. Madison’s knowledge of the
Napoleonic idiom was certainly incomplete. Whatever “bien entendu”
meant in the dictionaries, it meant in Napoleon’s mouth the words
“on condition,”--and something more. In further assuming that the
sequestered property had been restored, President Madison might with
equal propriety have assumed that it had never been seized. Russell did
what he could to satisfy Madison’s wishes, but he could not hope to
succeed.
Bound by these instructions to communicate the President’s proclamation
in language far from according with Napoleon’s ideas, Russell wrote to
Cadore, December 17, a note,[299], in which he not only repeated the
President’s assumptions in regard to the revocation of the decrees,
but also ventured beyond the scope of his instructions: he demanded an
explanation of the language used by Cadore himself in his report to the
Emperor, and by Semonville in the Senate. As though such a demand under
such circumstances were not indiscreet enough, Russell strengthened
the formal and perfunctory protests of the President by adding an
assurance of his own that the United States, after cutting off their
own intercourse with England, would not consent to “any commercial
intercourse whatever, under licenses or otherwise, between France and
her enemy.”
Russell’s note of December 17 was never answered by the French
government, and, as was equally natural, it was never published by
the President or made known to Congress. Fortunately for Russell,
the Emperor was in good humor, and Cadore was in haste to convey his
master’s wishes to the American _chargé d’affaires_. December
22 Russell was summoned to the minister, and a very interesting
interview took place. Cadore gently complained of the tone in which
Russell’s note had been written, but put into his hands, as its result
and answer, the two letters written by the ministers of Justice and
Finance,--which allowed American vessels to enter French ports, subject
only to provisional sequestration, until February 2, at which time
all vessels sequestered since November 1 would be restored. “When I
had read these letters,” reported Russell,[300] “I returned them to
the Duke of Cadore, and expressed to him my regret that the general
release of American vessels detained under the Berlin and Milan Decrees
should be deferred until the 2d of February, as this delay might throw
some doubt on the revocation of those decrees.” Cadore replied that
the time thus taken was intended to afford an opportunity for forming
some general rule by which the character of the property could be
decided. Russell then complained that by assigning the second day of
February,--the very day on which the non-intercourse with England would
be revived,--this event was made to appear as a condition precedent to
the abrogation of the French edicts; and thereby the order in which the
measures of the two governments ought to stand was reversed. In reply
Cadore repeated the general assurances of the friendly disposition
of the Emperor, and that he was determined to favor the trade of the
United States so far as it did not cover or promote the commerce of
England. He said the Berlin and Milan Decrees, “inasmuch as they
related to the United States,” were at an end; that the Emperor was
pleased with what the United States had already done, but that he could
not “throw himself into their arms” until they had accomplished their
undertaking.
Nothing could be more gentle than this manner of saying that the
revocation of November 1 was and was not founded on a condition
precedent; that the decrees themselves were and were not revoked; but
when Russell still pressed for a categorical answer, Cadore declared at
last, “with some vivacity, that the Emperor was determined to persevere
in his system against England; that he had overturned the world in
adopting this system, and that he would overturn it again to give it
effect.” On the third point Cadore was equally unyielding. Not a word
could Russell wring from him in regard to the confiscated property of
American merchants. “His omission to notice the last is more to be
lamented, as I have reason to believe that this conversation was meant
to form the only answer I am to receive to the communications which I
have addressed to him.”
The conduct of Cadore warranted Russell’s conclusion that “upon the
whole this interview was not calculated to increase my confidence in
the revocation of the decrees.” Although President Madison reached a
different conclusion, and on the strength of this conference caused
Congress to adopt the Non-Intercourse Act of March 2, Russell’s opinion
could not be disputed. At the end of another week Cadore sent word
that one of the American vessels, the “Grace Ann Greene,” arrived at
Marseilles since November 1, had been released; and Russell wrote to
Pinkney that this release might be considered conclusive evidence of
the revocation.[301] A month afterward he wrote to the Secretary of
State on the same subject in a different tone,[302] saying that the
United States had not yet much cause to be satisfied; that no vessel
arrived since November 1 had been permitted to discharge her cargo, and
that tedious delays were constantly interposed. As for the property
confiscated before November 1, Russell avowed himself afraid to make
the reclamation ordered by the President: “I ascertained indirectly
that a convention to this effect would not be entered into at this
moment; and I thought it indiscreet to expose the United States, with
all the right on their side, to a refusal.” No action of the United
States, he feared, could redeem the unfortunate property.[303]
Failure on these points was accompanied by a promise of success on
others. The President had remonstrated against the Emperor’s scheme
of issuing licenses through the French consuls to vessels in ports
of the United States; and Russell wrote to Cadore, Jan. 12, 1811,
that such consular superintendence was inadmissible, and would not be
permitted.[304] January 18 Cadore returned an answer, evidently taken
from the Emperor’s lips:[305]--
“I have read with much attention your note of January 12,
relative to the licenses intended to favor the commerce of the
Americans in France. This system had been conceived before the
revocation of the Decrees of Berlin and Milan had been resolved
on. Now circumstances are changed by the resolution taken by the
United States to cause their flag and their independence to be
respected. That which has been done before this last epoch can
no longer serve as a rule under actual circumstances.”
Although this letter said that the Berlin and Milan Decrees were
repealed,--not on Nov. 1, 1810, but at some indeterminate time
afterward, in consequence of the President’s proclamation of November
2,--yet it officially declared that whatever the date might be, on
January 18, when Cadore wrote, the revocation was complete. Russell
sent the letter to the President, and the President sent it nearly ten
months afterward to Congress as proof that the decrees were revoked.
He could not send, for he could not know, another letter written by
Cadore to Serurier three weeks later, which instructed him to the
contrary:[306]--
“I send you the copy of a letter addressed by me to Mr. Russell,
January 18, on the permits that had been at first delivered
to American ships. I cannot assure you that the permits are
no longer to be issued, although this letter gives it to be
understood in an explicit manner. Continue to conduct yourself
with the reserve heretofore recommended to you, and compromise
yourself by no step and by no official promise. Circumstances
are such that no engagement can be taken in advance. It is at
the date of February 2 that the United States were to execute
their act of non-intercourse against England; but before being
officially informed in France of what they have done at that
time, we cannot take here measures so decisive in favor of the
Americans as after news to February 2 shall have arrived from
America. This motive will serve to explain to you whatever
uncertainty may appear in the conduct of France toward the
United States.”
From these official instructions the facts were easy to understand.
The decrees had not been revoked on Aug. 5 or Nov. 1, 1810; they were
not revoked Jan. 18, 1811; they were not to be revoked on February 2;
but the Emperor would decide in the spring, when news should arrive
from America, whether he would make permanent exceptions in favor of
American commerce. In principle, the decrees were not to be revoked at
all.
For four years President Madison had strenuously protested that France
and England must withdraw their decrees as a condition precedent to
friendly relations with America. For four years Napoleon had insisted
that America should submit to his decrees as a condition precedent
to friendly relations with France. February 2, 1811, he carried his
point. The decisive day passed without action on his part. Six weeks
followed, but March 15 Russell still wrote to the Secretary of State
as doubtfully as he wrote in the previous December:[307] “The temper
here varies in relation to us with every rumor of the proceedings of
our government. One day we are told that the Emperor has learned that
the Non-intercourse Law will be severely executed,--that he is in good
humor, and that everything will go well; the next day it is stated that
he has heard something which has displeased him, and that the American
property lately arrived in this country is in the utmost jeopardy.
Every general plan here is evidently suspended until the course we may
elect to pursue be definite and certain.”
Russell made no further attempt to maintain the fact of revocation.
Indeed, if the decrees were revoked, American rights were more
lawlessly violated than before. As ship after ship arrived from the
United States, he saw each taken, under one pretext or another, into
the Emperor’s keeping:--
“To countenance delay, no doubt, a new order was issued to the
custom-houses on the 18th ult., that no vessels not having
licenses, coming from foreign countries, be admitted without
the special authority of the Emperor. This indeed makes the
detention indefinite, as when once a case is before the Emperor
it can no longer be inquired after, much less pressed, and it is
impossible to say when it may attract the Imperial attention. It
is my belief that our property will be kept within the control
of this government until it be officially known here that the
Non-intercourse Act against England went into operation with
undiminished rigor on the 2d of February.”
Under such circumstances, the idea that the United States were bound
by a contract with France--the principle on which Congress legislated
in the month of February--had no meaning to Jonathan Russell at Paris,
where as late as April 1 not a step had yet been taken toward making
the contract complete. “I trust,” wrote Russell, March 15, “that I
shall not be understood in anything which I have written in this
letter to urge any obligation on the United States to execute _at
all_ the Non-intercourse Law; this obligation is certainly weakened,
if not destroyed, by the conduct of the Government here.”
Russell never misunderstood the situation or misled his Government.
Although Napoleon’s habit of deception was the theme of every historian
and moralist, the more remarkable trait was his frequent effort to
avoid or postpone an evidently necessary falsehood, and, above all, his
incapacity to adhere to any consistent untruth. Napoleon was easily
understood by men of his own stamp; but he was not wholly misunderstood
by men like Armstrong and Russell. He did not choose to revoke the
decrees, and he made no secret of his reasons even to the American
government.
In the spring of 1811 the Emperor was surrounded by difficulties
caused by his interference with trade. The financial storm which
overspread England in 1810 extended to France in the following winter,
and not only swept away credit and capital throughout the empire,
but also embarrassed Napoleon’s finances and roused fresh resistance
to his experiments on commerce. The resistance irritated him, and he
showed his anger repeatedly in public. At the Tuileries, March 17, he
addressed some deputies of the Hanseatic League in a tone which still
betrayed an effort at self-control:[308]--
“The Decrees of Berlin and Milan are the fundamental laws of
my empire. They cease to have effect only for nations that
defend their sovereignty and maintain the religion of their
flag. England is in a state of blockade for nations that submit
to the decrees of 1806, because the flags so subjected to
English laws are denationalized; they are English. Nations on
the contrary that are sensible of their dignity, and that find
resources enough in their courage and strength for disregarding
the blockades by notice, commonly called paper blockades,
and enter the ports of my empire, other than those really
blockaded,--following the recognized usage and the stipulations
of the Treaty of Utrecht,--may communicate with England; for
them England is not blockaded. The Decrees of Berlin and Milan,
founded on the nature of things, will form the constant public
law of my empire during the whole time that England shall
maintain her Orders in Council of 1806 and 1807, and shall
violate the stipulations of the Treaty of Utrecht in that
matter.”
The sudden appearance of the Treaty of Utrecht had an effect of comedy;
but the speech itself merely reasserted the rules of 1806 and 1807,
which time had not made more acceptable to neutrals. Again and again,
by every means in his power and with every accent of truth, Napoleon
asserted that his decrees were not and never should be revoked, nor
should they be even suspended except for the nations that conformed to
them. Though America had rejected this law in 1807, she might still
if she chose accept it in 1811; but certainly she could not charge
Napoleon with deception or concealment of his meaning. A week after
the address to the Hanseatic deputies, on Sunday, March 24, he made
another and a more emphatic speech. The principal bankers and merchants
of Paris came to the Tuileries to offer their congratulations on the
birth of a son. Napoleon harangued them for more than half an hour in
the tone he sometimes affected, of a subaltern of dragoons,--rude,
broken, and almost incoherent, but nervous and terrifying:--
“When I issued my Decrees of Berlin and Milan, England laughed;
you made fun of me; yet I know my business. I had maturely
weighed my situation with England; but people pretended that I
did not know what I was about,--that I was ill-advised. Yet see
where England stands to-day!... Within ten years I shall subject
England. I want only a maritime force. Is not the French empire
brilliant enough for me? I have taken Holland, Hamburg, etc.,
only to make my flag respected. I consider the flag of a nation
as a part of herself; she must be able to carry it everywhere,
or she is not free. That nation which does not make her flag
respected is not a nation in my eyes. The Americans--we are
going to see what they will do. No Power in Europe shall trade
with England. Six months sooner or later I shall catch up with
it (_je l’attendrai_),--my sword is long enough for that.
I made peace at Tilsit only because Russia undertook to make
war on England. I was then victorious. I might have gone to
Wilna; nothing could stop me but this engagement of Russia....
At present I am only moderately desirous of peace with England.
I have the means of making a navy; I have all the products of
the Rhine; I have timber, dock-yards, etc.; I have already said
that I have sailors. The English stop everything on the ocean;
I will stop everything I find of theirs on the Continent. Their
Miladies, their Milords,--we shall be quit! (_Leurs Miladies,
leurs Milords--nous serons à deux de jeu!_)”
This hurried talk, which was rather a conversation than a speech,
lasted until the Emperor’s voice began to fail him. He flung defiance
in the face of every nation in the Christian world, and announced in
no veiled terms the coming fate of Russia. His loquacity astounded
his hearers, and within a few days several reports of what he said,
differing in details, but agreeing in the main, were handed privately
about Paris, and were on their way to St. Petersburg, London, and
New York[309]. One account varied in regard to the words used about
America:--
“The Decrees of Berlin and Milan are the fundamental laws of my
empire,” began the second report. “As for neutral navigation, I
regard the flag as an extension of territory; the Power which
lets it be violated cannot be considered neutral. The lot of
American commerce will be soon decided. I will favor it if the
United States conform to those decrees; in the contrary case,
their ships will be excluded from the ports of my empire.”
Russell sent to Monroe these private accounts, adding a few details to
show more exactly the Emperor’s meaning. Writing April 4, he said that
no American vessel had been allowed an entry since February 4 unless
carrying a license; that a secret order had then been given to the
custom-house to make no reports on American cases; that the Council of
Prizes had suspended its decisions; and that, notwithstanding Cadore’s
promise, licenses were still issued. “If the license system,” concluded
Russell, “were concerned, as the Duke of Cadore suggests, to favor
American commerce during the existence only of the Berlin and Milan
Decrees, it is probably necessary to infer from the excuse of that
system the continuance of those decrees.”
Left without powers or instructions, Russell could thenceforward do
nothing. Remonstrance was worse than useless. “A representation of
this kind,” he wrote, “however mildly it might portray the unfriendly
and faithless conduct of this Government, might have hastened a crisis
which it does not become me to urge.”
At length, April 25, despatches arrived from America enclosing the
Non-intercourse Act of March 2 and the secret Act for taking possession
of Florida. The President’s accompanying instructions[310] ordered
Russell to explain that the different dates fixed by the Proclamation
and by the Act for enforcing the non-intercourse against England
were owing to the different senses in which Cadore’s letter had been
construed in France and America,--the President having assumed
that the decrees would have been extinct Nov. 1, 1810, while the
French government, “as appears from its official acts, admits only a
suspension with a view to a subsequent cessation.” These instructions,
as well as Russell’s despatches for the most part, were never
communicated to Congress.
April 17, a week before these documents arrived, Napoleon made a sudden
change in his Cabinet, by dismissing Cadore and appointing Hugues
Maret, Duc de Bassano, as his Minister of Foreign Affairs. No one knew
the cause of Cadore’s fall. He was mild, modest, and not given to
display. He “lacked conversation,” Napoleon complained. Probably his
true offence consisted in leaning toward Russia and in dislike for the
commercial system, while Maret owed promotion to opposite tendencies.
Maret’s abilities were undoubted; his political morality was no worse
than that of his master, and perhaps no better than that of Cadore or
of Talleyrand whom he hated.[311] He could hardly be more obedient
than Cadore; and as far us America was concerned, he could do no more
mischief.
When Russell repaired to the Foreign Office, April 28, he was received
by the new minister, who availed himself of his inexperience to ask
many questions and to answer none. Russell had a long interview with
no results; but this delay mattered little, for the Emperor needed no
information. No sooner had he received the Non-intercourse Act of
March 2 than he ordered his ministers to make a report on the situation
of American commerce.[312] The order was due not so much to a wish of
hearing what his ministers had to say as of telling them what they were
to report:--
“The United States have not declared war on England, but they
have recognized the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, since they
have authorized their citizens to trade with France, and have
forbidden them every relation with England. In strict public
right, the Emperor ought to exact that the United States should
declare war against England; but after all it is in some sort to
make war when they consent that the Decree of Berlin should be
applied to ships which shall have communicated with England. On
this hypothesis, one would say: ‘The Decrees of Berlin and Milan
are withdrawn as regards the United States; but as every ship
which has touched in England, or is bound thither, is a vagrant
that the laws punish and confiscate, it may be confiscated in
France.’ If this reasoning could be established, nothing would
remain but to take precautions for admitting none but American
products on American ships.”
This view of the contract to which American faith was bound, though
quite the opposite of Madison’s, was liberal compared with its
alternative:--
“Finally, if it should be impossible to trace out a good theory
in this system, the best would be to gain time, leaving the
principles of the matter a little obscure until we see the
United States take sides; for it appears that that Government
cannot remain long in its actual situation toward England, with
whom it has also political discussions concerning the affairs of
Spanish America.”
The Emperor’s will was law. The Council set itself accordingly to
the task of “leaving the principles of the matter a little obscure”
until the United States should declare war against England; while the
Emperor, not without reason, assumed that America had recognized the
legality of his decrees.