April 17, a week before these documents arrived, Napoleon made a sudden change in his Cabinet, by dismissing Cadore and appointing Hugues Maret, Duc de Bassano, as his Minister of Foreign Affairs. No one knew the cause of Cadore’s fall. He was mild, modest, and not given to display. He “lacked conversation,” Napoleon complained. Probably his true offence consisted in leaning toward Russia and in dislike for the commercial system, while Maret owed promotion to opposite tendencies. Maret’s abilities were undoubted; his political morality was no worse than that of his master, and perhaps no better than that of Cadore or of Talleyrand whom he hated.[311] He could hardly be more obedient than Cadore; and as far us America was concerned, he could do no more mischief.
When Russell repaired to the Foreign Office, April 28, he was received by the new minister, who availed himself of his inexperience to ask many questions and to answer none. Russell had a long interview with no results; but this delay mattered little, for the Emperor needed no information. No sooner had he received the Non-intercourse Act of March 2 than he ordered his ministers to make a report on the situation of American commerce.[312] The order was due not so much to a wish of hearing what his ministers had to say as of telling them what they were to report:—
“The United States have not declared war on England, but they have recognized the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, since they have authorized their citizens to trade with France, and have forbidden them every relation with England. In strict public right, the Emperor ought to exact that the United States should declare war against England; but after all it is in some sort to make war when they consent that the Decree of Berlin should be applied to ships which shall have communicated with England. On this hypothesis, one would say: ‘The Decrees of Berlin and Milan are withdrawn as regards the United States; but as every ship which has touched in England, or is bound thither, is a vagrant that the laws punish and confiscate, it may be confiscated in France.’ If this reasoning could be established, nothing would remain but to take precautions for admitting none but American products on American ships.”
This view of the contract to which American faith was bound, though quite the opposite of Madison’s, was liberal compared with its alternative:—
“Finally, if it should be impossible to trace out a good theory in this system, the best would be to gain time, leaving the principles of the matter a little obscure until we see the United States take sides; for it appears that that Government cannot remain long in its actual situation toward England, with whom it has also political discussions concerning the affairs of Spanish America.”
The Emperor’s will was law. The Council set itself accordingly to the task of “leaving the principles of the matter a little obscure” until the United States should declare war against England; while the Emperor, not without reason, assumed that America had recognized the legality of his decrees.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Emperor’s decision was made known to the American government by a letter[313] from Bassano to Russell, dated May 4, 1811, almost as curt as a declaration of war:—
“I hasten to announce to you that his Majesty the Emperor has ordered his Minister of Finance to authorize the admission of the American cargoes which had been provisionally placed in deposit on their arrival in France. I have the honor to send you a list of the vessels to which these cargoes belong; they will have to export their value in national merchandise, of which two thirds will be in silks. I have not lost a moment in communicating to you a measure perfectly in accord with the sentiments of union and of friendship which exist between the two Powers.”
This was all. No imperial decree of repeal was issued or suggested. President Madison cared little for the released ships; he cared only for the principle involved in the continued existence of the decrees, and Bassano’s letter announced by silence, as distinctly as it could have said in words, that the principle of the decrees was not abandoned. Such were Napoleon’s orders; and in executing them Bassano did not, like Cadore or Talleyrand, allow himself the license of softening their bluntness. Russell knew the letter to be fatal to any claim that the French decrees were withdrawn, but he could do nothing else than send it to London as offering, perhaps, evidence of the “actual relations growing out of the revocation of the Berlin and Milan Decrees.”[314] He wrote to Bassano a letter asking the release of the American vessels captured and brought into French ports as prizes since November 1, but he obtained no answer.[315] A month afterward he wrote again, remonstrating against the excessive tariff duties and the requirement that American vessels should take two thirds of their return cargoes in French silks; but this letter received as little notice as the other. Russell had the mortification of knowing, almost as well as Bassano himself, the motives that guided the Emperor; and July 13 he recited them to the President in language as strong as propriety allowed:[316]—