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.”