Again and again, orally and in writing, in the presence of the whole Council and in private to each minister, the Emperor had asserted positively and even angrily that “all the measures I have taken, as I have said several times, are only measures of reprisal;” yet after assuming that his reprisals had succeeded, and that England had withdrawn her orders as France should have withdrawn her decrees, he told Montalivet, as though it were a matter of course, that he should carry out the same system by different means. This method of fighting for the rights of neutrals differed but little, and not to advantage, from the British method of fighting against them.
The Emperor put his new plan in shape. He proposed to recognize neutral rights by issuing licenses under the name of permits for a score of American vessels, and for the introduction of Georgia cotton, the article for which Montalivet made his long struggle. This measure was to be so organized that the shipments could take place only in a single designated port of America, only with certificates of origin delivered by a single French consul also to be designated; that the ship could enter only at one or two designated ports of France; that independently of the certificates of origin a cipher-letter should be written to the Minister of Foreign Relations by the consul who should have given them; finally, that the ships should be required to take in return wines, cognac, silks, and other French goods for the value of the cargo.
Deep was Armstrong’s disgust when an Imperial Decree[195] appeared, dated July 15, authorizing licenses for thirty American ships to sail from Charleston or New York under the rigorous conditions detailed by this note; but the thirty licenses were merely a beginning. Once having grasped the idea that something must be done for French industry, the Emperor pressed it with his usual energy and with the usual results. During the months of June and July, while annexing Holland to his empire, he worked laboriously on his new commercial system. He created a special Council of Commerce, held meetings as often as twice a week, and issued decrees and orders by dozens. The difficulty of understanding his new method was great, owing to a duplication of orders not unusual with him; the meaning of a public decree was affected by some secret decree or order not made public, and as never failed to happen with his civil affairs, the whole mass became confused.
Apparently the new system[196] rested on a decree of July 25, 1810, which forbade any ship whatever to leave a French port for a foreign port without a license; and this license, in the Emperor’s eyes, gave the character of a French ship to the licensed vessel,—“that is to say, in two words, that I will have no neutral vessel; and in fact there is none really neutral,—they are all vessels which violate the blockade and pay ransom to the English.” In other words the Emperor’s scheme was founded on his Berlin and Milan Decree and left them intact except within the operation of the licenses. “For these [licensed] ships,” he said,[197] “the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are null and void; ... my licenses are a tacit privilege of exemption from my decrees, on condition of conforming to the rules prescribed by the said licenses.” The licenses themselves were classified in thirty different series,[198]—for the ocean, the Mediterranean, England, etc.,—and prescribed the cargoes to be carried both on the inward and outward voyages.[199] They made no distinction between neutrals and enemies; the license that authorized a voyage from London was the same, except for its scries, as that which covered a cargo of cotton from Charleston; and such distinction as appeared, was limited to imposing on the neutral additional trouble to prove that his goods were not English. In theory the import of such British merchandise as would relieve England’s distress was forbidden, and the export of French merchandise was encouraged, not only in order to assist French industry, but also in order to drain England of specie. Especially the sugar, coffee, and cotton of the colonies were prohibited; but when captured by privateers or confiscated on land, colonial produce was first admitted to the custom-house at a duty of fifty per cent, and then sold for the benefit of the Imperial treasury.
This system and tariff Napoleon imposed on all the countries subject to his power, including Switzerland, Naples, Hamburg, and the Hanse Towns; while he exerted all his influence to force the same policy on Prussia and Russia. As far as concerned the only neutral, the United States, the system classified American ships either as English when unlicensed, or as French when licensed; it imposed Imperial functions inconsistent with local law on the French consuls in America, and violated both international and municipal law only to produce another form of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, in some respects more offensive than the original.
The character and actions of Napoleon were so overpowering that history naturally follows their course rather than the acts of the undecided and unenergetic governments which he drove before him; and for this reason the replies made by Secretary Robert Smith to the flashes of Imperial temper or policy have not hitherto been noticed. In truth, Secretary Smith made no attempt to rival Napoleon in originality or in vigor of ideas or expression. Neither his genius nor that of Madison shone bright in the lurid glare of the Emperor’s planet. When Champagny’s letter of Aug. 22, 1809, reached Washington with its novel views about floating colonies, rights of search, identity of blockade with siege, and warning of confiscations in Holland, Spain, and Italy, President Madison, replying through Robert Smith, Dec. 1, 1809, contented himself with silence in regard to the threats, and with a mild dissent from the Emperor’s exposition of the jus gentium. “However founded the definition of M. Champagny may be in reason and general utility, and consequently however desirable to be made the established law on the subject of blockades, a different practice has too long prevailed among all nations, France as well as others, and is too strongly authenticated by the writers of admitted authority, to be combated by the United States.”
A touch of Madison’s humor brightened the monotony of these commonplaces, but was not granted the freedom which the subject might have allowed. The President felt no wish to dwell on what was unreasonable or violent in Napoleon’s conduct. He passed lightly over the floating colony, ignored the threatened seizure of American commerce, and fastened on the closing paragraph of Champagny’s note, which promised that if England would revoke her blockades, the decrees of France should fall of themselves. This proposition, defined by Champagny and commented by Armstrong, required that England should admit the whole doctrine of floating colonies and siege-blockades. Madison knew it to be impracticable and deceptive; but he was not bound to go beyond the letter of the pledge, and although he declined to admit Napoleon among those “writers of admitted authority” whose law prevailed among nations, he instructed Armstrong to act without delay in the sense of Champagny’s suggestion.
“You will of course,” wrote Secretary Smith to Armstrong, Dec. 1, 1809, “understand it to be wished that you should ascertain the meaning of the French government as to the condition on which it has been proposed to revoke the Berlin Decree. On the principle which seems to be assumed by M. Champagny, nothing more ought to be required than a recall by Great Britain of her proclamation or illegal blockades which are of a date prior to that of the Berlin Decree, or a formal declaration that they are not now in force.”[200]
January 25, 1810, Armstrong asked Cadore the question thus dictated, and received for answer that the Emperor required only the revocation of the British blockades as a condition of recalling the Decree of Berlin,—a reply which Armstrong communicated the same day to Minister Pinkney at London. No further instructions from Washington seem to have reached the United States Legation at Paris until news arrived that on May 1 the Non-intercourse Act had been repealed. No official information of the repeal was received by Armstrong, but an American who brought despatches from Pinkney in London brought also a printed copy of the Act of May 1, 1810. In the want of official advices, probably July 9, Armstrong communicated the Act of May 1 to the Duc de Cadore in the unofficial form of a newspaper. Cadore replied that being so entirely unofficial, it could not be made the ground-work of any government proceeding;[201] but he took it to the Emperor, and Armstrong waited for some striking exhibition of displeasure.
From that moment Armstrong’s relations with Cadore became mysterious. Something unrecorded passed between them, for, July 19 Napoleon ordered Cadore to write to the French ambassador at St. Petersburg a message for the American minister at that Court:[202]—