“What will satisfy him on even these points, particularly the former, is not distinctly explained. Our creed on this subject is one thing; that of the British government another; and the French doctrine of visit, a third. When we speak of illegal search, we mean that which claims the right of impressment also; but according to the imperial decrees and their commentators, the offence is equally great whatever may be the object of the visit,—whether it be to demand half your crew, or to ascertain only the port from which you sailed, the nature of your cargo, or the character of your flag. This is pushing things to a point whither we cannot follow them, and which, if I do not mistake, is selected because it is a point of that description.”
Before the month of August, Napoleon reverted more energetically than ever to his old practice and policy. Within Armstrong’s reach remained only one influence strong enough to offer a momentary resistance to imperial orders, and thither he turned. The kingdom of Holland was still nominally independent, and its trade an object of interest. While England shaped her policy to favor the licensed or smuggling trade with Dutch ports, the United States risked their relations with England and France by treating Holland as an independent neutral. Yet the nominal independence of Holland was due only to the accident that had made Louis its king, as it had made his brother Joseph king of Spain,—not wholly with a view to please them, but also to secure obedience to Napoleon’s orders and energy to his system. No one would willingly deprive any member of Napoleon’s family of virtues which the world allowed them; yet none but a Bonaparte thoroughly understood a Bonaparte, and Napoleon’s opinion of his brothers, as their opinions of him, stand highest in authority. Napoleon was often generous and sometimes forbearing with his brothers, and left them no small freedom to seek popularity at his expense; but they were nothing except as they represented him, and their ideas of independence or of philanthropy showed entire misunderstanding of their situation. Of all Napoleon’s brothers, Louis was the one with whom he was most reasonably offended. Lucien at least did not wait to be made a king before he rebelled; but Louis accepted the throne, and then intrigued persistently against the Emperor’s orders. From the moment he went to Holland he assumed to be an independent monarch, devoted to winning popularity. He would not execute the Berlin Decree until Napoleon threatened to march an army upon him; he connived at its evasion; he issued licenses and admitted cargoes as he pleased; and he did this with such systematic disregard of remonstrance that Napoleon became at last angry.
July 17, some days after the battle of Wagram, the Emperor wrote from Vienna to Louis,[112]—
“You complain of a newspaper article; it is France that has a right to complain of the bad spirit which reigns with you.... It may not be your fault, but it is none the less true that Holland is an English province.”
At the same time he ordered Champagny to notify the Dutch government officially that if it did not of its own accord place itself on the same footing with France, it would be in danger of war.[113]
While this correspondence was still going on, Armstrong imagined that he might obtain some advantage by visiting Holland. He amused himself during the idle August by a journey to Amsterdam, where he obtained, August 19, a private interview with King Louis. Three days before, Flushing had capitulated to the English expedition which was supposed to be threatening Antwerp. At Vienna Napoleon was negotiating for peace, and between the obstinacy of Austria and the British attacks on Madrid and Antwerp he found himself ill at ease. President Madison had just issued his Proclamation of August 9 reviving the Non-intercourse Act, which kept open the American trade with Holland. Everywhere the situation was confused, irritable, and hard to understand. A general system of cross-purposes seemed to govern the political movements of the world.
King Louis told Armstrong that he was quarrelling seriously with the Emperor on account of the American trade, but was bent on protecting it at all hazards. This declaration to a foreign minister accredited not to himself but to his brother, showed Louis attempting with the aid of foreign nations a systematic opposition to Napoleon’s will. He denounced his brother’s system as “the triumph of immorality over justice.... The system is bad,—so bad that it cannot last; but in the mean time we are the sufferers.” Even the British expedition to Walcheren troubled Louis chiefly because it forced him under his brother’s despotism. “It is an erring policy, and will have no solid or lasting effect but that of drawing upon us a French army which will extinguish all that is left of ancient Holland. Can it be wisdom in England to see this country a province of France?”
With such comfort as Armstrong could draw from the knowledge that Napoleon’s brothers were as hostile as President Madison to the imperial system, he returned to Paris, September 6, to wait the further development of the Emperor’s plans. He found on his arrival two notes from Champagny at Vienna. One of these despatches expressed a civil hope, hardly felt by the Emperor,[114] that Armstrong would not for the present carry out his project of returning to America. The other, dated August 22, was nothing less than a revised and permanent form of the Emperor’s essay on the jus gentium, which Champagny since May 18 had kept in his portfolio.[115]
In Champagny’s hands Napoleon’s views lost freshness without gaining legality. The “village steeple” disappeared, but with some modification the “floating colony” remained, and the principle of free seas was carried to its extreme results:—
“A merchant-vessel sailing with all the necessary papers (avec les expéditions) from its government is a floating colony. To do violence to such a vessel by visits, by searches, and by other acts of an arbitrary authority is to violate the territory of a colony; this is to infringe on the independence of its government.... The right, or rather the pretension, of blockading by a proclamation rivers and coasts, is as monstrous (révoltante) as it is absurd. A right cannot be derived from the will or the caprice of one of the interested parties, but ought to be derived from the nature of things themselves. A place is not truly blockaded until it is invested by land and sea.”