The conduct of Cadore warranted Russell’s conclusion that “upon the whole this interview was not calculated to increase my confidence in the revocation of the decrees.” Although President Madison reached a different conclusion, and on the strength of this conference caused Congress to adopt the Non-Intercourse Act of March 2, Russell’s opinion could not be disputed. At the end of another week Cadore sent word that one of the American vessels, the “Grace Ann Greene,” arrived at Marseilles since November 1, had been released; and Russell wrote to Pinkney that this release might be considered conclusive evidence of the revocation.[301] A month afterward he wrote to the Secretary of State on the same subject in a different tone,[302] saying that the United States had not yet much cause to be satisfied; that no vessel arrived since November 1 had been permitted to discharge her cargo, and that tedious delays were constantly interposed. As for the property confiscated before November 1, Russell avowed himself afraid to make the reclamation ordered by the President: “I ascertained indirectly that a convention to this effect would not be entered into at this moment; and I thought it indiscreet to expose the United States, with all the right on their side, to a refusal.” No action of the United States, he feared, could redeem the unfortunate property.[303]
Failure on these points was accompanied by a promise of success on others. The President had remonstrated against the Emperor’s scheme of issuing licenses through the French consuls to vessels in ports of the United States; and Russell wrote to Cadore, Jan. 12, 1811, that such consular superintendence was inadmissible, and would not be permitted.[304] January 18 Cadore returned an answer, evidently taken from the Emperor’s lips:[305]—
“I have read with much attention your note of January 12, relative to the licenses intended to favor the commerce of the Americans in France. This system had been conceived before the revocation of the Decrees of Berlin and Milan had been resolved on. Now circumstances are changed by the resolution taken by the United States to cause their flag and their independence to be respected. That which has been done before this last epoch can no longer serve as a rule under actual circumstances.”
Although this letter said that the Berlin and Milan Decrees were repealed,—not on Nov. 1, 1810, but at some indeterminate time afterward, in consequence of the President’s proclamation of November 2,—yet it officially declared that whatever the date might be, on January 18, when Cadore wrote, the revocation was complete. Russell sent the letter to the President, and the President sent it nearly ten months afterward to Congress as proof that the decrees were revoked. He could not send, for he could not know, another letter written by Cadore to Serurier three weeks later, which instructed him to the contrary:[306]—
“I send you the copy of a letter addressed by me to Mr. Russell, January 18, on the permits that had been at first delivered to American ships. I cannot assure you that the permits are no longer to be issued, although this letter gives it to be understood in an explicit manner. Continue to conduct yourself with the reserve heretofore recommended to you, and compromise yourself by no step and by no official promise. Circumstances are such that no engagement can be taken in advance. It is at the date of February 2 that the United States were to execute their act of non-intercourse against England; but before being officially informed in France of what they have done at that time, we cannot take here measures so decisive in favor of the Americans as after news to February 2 shall have arrived from America. This motive will serve to explain to you whatever uncertainty may appear in the conduct of France toward the United States.”
From these official instructions the facts were easy to understand. The decrees had not been revoked on Aug. 5 or Nov. 1, 1810; they were not revoked Jan. 18, 1811; they were not to be revoked on February 2; but the Emperor would decide in the spring, when news should arrive from America, whether he would make permanent exceptions in favor of American commerce. In principle, the decrees were not to be revoked at all.
For four years President Madison had strenuously protested that France and England must withdraw their decrees as a condition precedent to friendly relations with America. For four years Napoleon had insisted that America should submit to his decrees as a condition precedent to friendly relations with France. February 2, 1811, he carried his point. The decisive day passed without action on his part. Six weeks followed, but March 15 Russell still wrote to the Secretary of State as doubtfully as he wrote in the previous December:[307] “The temper here varies in relation to us with every rumor of the proceedings of our government. One day we are told that the Emperor has learned that the Non-intercourse Law will be severely executed,—that he is in good humor, and that everything will go well; the next day it is stated that he has heard something which has displeased him, and that the American property lately arrived in this country is in the utmost jeopardy. Every general plan here is evidently suspended until the course we may elect to pursue be definite and certain.”
Russell made no further attempt to maintain the fact of revocation. Indeed, if the decrees were revoked, American rights were more lawlessly violated than before. As ship after ship arrived from the United States, he saw each taken, under one pretext or another, into the Emperor’s keeping:—
“To countenance delay, no doubt, a new order was issued to the custom-houses on the 18th ult., that no vessels not having licenses, coming from foreign countries, be admitted without the special authority of the Emperor. This indeed makes the detention indefinite, as when once a case is before the Emperor it can no longer be inquired after, much less pressed, and it is impossible to say when it may attract the Imperial attention. It is my belief that our property will be kept within the control of this government until it be officially known here that the Non-intercourse Act against England went into operation with undiminished rigor on the 2d of February.”
Under such circumstances, the idea that the United States were bound by a contract with France—the principle on which Congress legislated in the month of February—had no meaning to Jonathan Russell at Paris, where as late as April 1 not a step had yet been taken toward making the contract complete. “I trust,” wrote Russell, March 15, “that I shall not be understood in anything which I have written in this letter to urge any obligation on the United States to execute at all the Non-intercourse Law; this obligation is certainly weakened, if not destroyed, by the conduct of the Government here.”