Sept. 25, 1806, the Emperor returned to Germany to begin a war with Prussia which was to lead him far. His departure put an end to whatever hopes Armstrong still cherished, while it left the United States in a mortifying attitude. After having been defied by Spain, Jefferson found himself deluded by France. No imagination could conceive the purpose for which Napoleon meant to use the United States government; but that he had some scheme, to which President Jefferson must be made subservient, was clear. Armstrong tried in vain to penetrate the mystery. Whatever it might be, it was as yet hidden in the recesses of Napoleon’s mind.
No sooner had the Emperor left Paris than the American minister, September 30, wrote a note of inquiry to Izquierdo, who replied in substance that his powers had been suspended or recalled. Nothing remained but for Armstrong to inform the President of all the facts connected with the failure of his negotiation, and then to wait at Paris, with what patience he could command, for the moment when Napoleon should consent to reveal the meaning of these mysterious manœuvres. Yet in diplomacy as in war, nations were commonly lost when they allowed Napoleon to take the initiative, and to choose his own time and place for attack. The United States government had every reason to be on its guard.
Napoleon reached the battle-field of Jena Oct. 14, 1806, and crushed the Prussian army. October 27 the conquering French battalions made a triumphal entry into Berlin. November 25,—the day so frequently occurring in the story of Burr’s conspiracy, when Jefferson received General Wilkinson’s despatch, and when Wilkinson himself reached New Orleans,—the Emperor Napoleon left Berlin for Poland and Russia. Before leaving Berlin he signed a paper destined to become famous throughout the world under the name of the Berlin Decree. This extraordinary mandate, bearing the date of Nov. 21, 1806, began by charging that England disregarded the law of nations. She made non-combatants prisoners of war; confiscated private property; blockaded unfortified harbors and mouths of rivers, and considered places as blockaded though she had not a single ship before them,—even whole coasts and empires. This monstrous abuse of the right of blockade had no other object than to raise the commerce and industry of England on the ruin of the commerce and industry of the Continent, and gave a natural right to use against her the same weapons and methods of warfare. Therefore, until England should recognize and correct these violations of law, it was decreed—(1) That the British Isles were in a state of blockade; (2) That all intercourse with them was prohibited; (3) That every Englishman found within French authority was a prisoner of war; (4) That all British property, private as well as public, was prize of war; (5) That all merchandise coming from England was prize of war; (6) That half the product of such confiscations should be employed to indemnify merchants whose property had been captured by British cruisers; (7) That no ship coming from England or her colonies should be admitted into any port; (8) That every vessel trying to elude this rule by means of false papers should be confiscated.
This decree, which cut the roots of neutral rights and of American commerce with Europe, was published at Paris in the “Moniteur” of Dec. 5, 1806. At the same time news arrived that Hamburg, and nearly all the north coast of Germany along the German Ocean and the Baltic, had fallen into Napoleon’s hands, or was certain soon to become his prey. When Armstrong, watching with keen interest the rapid progress of French arms, took up the “Moniteur” which contained the Berlin Decree, he might well have started to his feet with the cry that at last he understood what the Emperor would be at. A part of the enigma which had perplexed diplomacy was explained, and what was not yet revealed might vaguely be divined.
December 10 Armstrong wrote to Decrès, the Minister of Marine, to ask of him, in Talleyrand’s absence, an explanation of the decree. For some days no answer was received. “Much is said here,” he wrote to Madison, “of qualifications which are to be given to the arrêté of November 20 [21], and which would indeed make it very harmless; but these are rather to be hoped for than believed in.” When Decrès’ reply arrived, dated December 24, it went far to confirm Armstrong’s fears, by avoiding decisive and official explanation.[279]
“I consider the imperial decree of the 21st of November last,” wrote Decrès, “as thus far conveying no modification of the regulations at present observed in France with regard to neutral navigators, nor consequently of the convention of Sept. 30, 1800, with the United States of America; ... but it will be proper that your Excellency should communicate with the Minister of Exterior Relations as to what concerns the correspondence of citizens of the United States with England.... It will not escape General Armstrong that my answers cannot have the development which they would receive from the Minister of Exterior Relations, and that it is naturally to him that he ought to address himself for these explanations, which I am very happy to give him, because he wishes them, but upon which I have much less positive information than the Prince of Benevento.”
With this explanation, such as it was, Armstrong was obliged to content himself; and the year 1806 closed, leaving President Jefferson at the mercy of battles soon to be fought in the most distant corner of Germany, where the Emperor Alexander of Russia was gathering his forces for a conflict more terrible than Europe had yet seen.
CHAPTER XVII.
While Armstrong coped with Napoleon in Paris, Monroe enjoyed a brief moment of sunshine on the other side of the Channel. After his diplomatic disasters he might think himself happy, though he only threw from his own shoulders upon those of Armstrong and Bowdoin the Florida negotiation which had thus far injured the reputation of every man connected with it; but he had double cause of rejoicing. He not only escaped from Talleyrand and Godoy, but also from William Pitt, whose body he saw carried amidst the pompous mournings of London in funeral state to Westminster Abbey, and left in solemn grandeur by the side of his great father. Pitt died Jan. 23, 1806, exhausted by the anxieties of office.
At last Fortune smiled upon Monroe with caresses more winning than any she had shown since her last sudden appearance before his eyes under the outward semblance of Barbé Marbois in Livingston’s garden on the Boulevard Montmartre. Old King George, knowing no Tory competent to succeed Pitt or capable of controlling Parliament, summoned Lord Grenville and submitted to Charles James Fox. Grenville became First Lord of the Treasury; Fox took charge of the Foreign Office; Erskine became Lord Chancellor; Sidmouth, Lord Privy Seal. The union of different party chiefs was so general as to give the Ministry the nickname of All the Talents. By February 7 the revolution was completed.