“It is possible,” he said, “that Congress may repeal the embargo, the continuation of which would do us more harm than a state of war. For us in the present situation all is loss; whereas, however powerful the English may be, war would put us in a way of doing them much harm, because our people are enterprising. Yet as it is probable that Congress will favor raising the embargo if the Orders in Council are withdrawn, it would be necessary for your interests, if you are unwilling to withdraw your decrees, that at least you should promise their withdrawal on condition that the embargo be withdrawn in your favor. You will also observe that were the embargo withdrawn in favor of the English, this will not close our differences with them, because never—no, never—will there be an arrangement with them if they do not renounce the impressment of our seamen on our ships.”
With this avowal, which Turreau understood as a sort of pledge that Jefferson would lean toward war with England rather than with France, the French minister was obliged to content himself; while he pressed on his Government the assurance that both the President and the secretary wished more than all else to obtain the Floridas. Such reports were little calculated to change the Emperor’s course. Human ingenuity discovered but one way to break Napoleon’s will, and this single method was that of showing power to break his plans.
In due time Armstrong received his instructions of May 2, and wrote June 10 to Champagny a note declining the proposed alliance, and expressing the satisfaction which his Government felt at hearing the Emperor’s approval of “a cautionary occupation of the Floridas.” Napoleon, who was still at Bayonne in the flush of his power, no sooner read this reply than he wrote to Champagny,[252]—
“Answer the American minister that you do not know what he means about the occupation of the Floridas; and that the Americans, being at peace with the Spaniards, cannot occupy the Floridas without the permission or the request of the King of Spain.”
Armstrong, a few days afterward, was astonished by receiving from Champagny a note[253] denying positively that any suggestion had ever been made to warrant an American occupation of the Floridas without an express request from the King of Spain: “The Emperor has neither the right nor the wish to authorize an infraction of international law, contrary to the interests of an independent Power, his ally and his friend.” When Napoleon chose to deny a fact, argument was thrown away; yet Armstrong could not do otherwise than recall Champagny’s own words, which he did in a formal note, and there left the matter at rest, writing to his Government that the change in tone had “no doubt grown out of the new relations which the Floridas bear to this government since the abdication of Charles IV.”[254]
For once Armstrong was too charitable. He might safely have assumed that Napoleon was also continuing the same coarse game he had played since April, 1803,—snatching away the lure he loved to dangle before Jefferson’s eyes, punishing the Americans for refusing his offer of alliance, and making them feel the constant pressure of his will. They were fortunate if he did not at once confiscate the property he had sequestered. Indeed, not only did his seizures of American property continue even more rigorously than before,[255] but such French frigates as could keep at sea actually burned and sunk American ships that came in their way. The Bayonne Decree was enforced like a declaration of war. The Emperor tolerated no remonstrance. At Bayonne, July 6, he had an interview with one of the Livingstons, who was on his way to America as bearer of despatches.
“We are obliged to embargo your ships,” said the Emperor;[256] “they keep up a trade with England; they come to Holland and elsewhere with English goods; England has made them tributary to her. This I will not suffer. Tell the President from me when you see him in America that if he can make a treaty with England, preserving his maritime rights, it will be agreeable to me; but that I will make war upon the universe, should it support her unjust pretensions. I will not abate any part of my system.”
Yet in one respect he made a concession. He no longer required a declaration of war from the United States. The embargo seemed to him, as to Jefferson, an act of hostility to England which answered the immediate wants of France. In the report on foreign relations, dated Sept. 1, 1808, Napoleon expressed publicly his approval of the embargo:—
“The Americans,—this people who placed their fortune, their prosperity, and almost their existence in commerce,—have given the example of a great and courageous sacrifice. By a general embargo they have interdicted all commerce, all exchange, rather than shamefully submit to that tribute which the English pretend to impose on the shipping of all nations.”
Armstrong, finding that his advice was not even considered at home, withdrew from affairs. After obeying his instructions of May 2, and recording the conventional protest against Napoleon’s uncivil tone,[257] he secluded himself, early in August, at the baths of Bourbon l’Archambault, one hundred and fifty miles from Paris, and nursed his rheumatism till autumn. Thither followed him instructions from Madison, dated July 21,[258] directing him to present the case of the burned vessels “in terms which may awaken the French government to the nature of the injury and the demands of justice;” but the limit of Armstrong’s patience was reached, and he flatly refused to obey. Any new experiment made at that moment, he said, would certainly be useless and perhaps injurious:—