While Bassano amused Joel Barlow with conversations that resulted in nothing, he drew up a report to the Emperor, to be laid before the conservative Senate, dealing wholly with the question of neutrals. Circumstances made the appearance of this report peculiarly mortifying to Barlow. Jonathan Russell, who had been sent to act as American chargé at London, wrote to Barlow asking for additional proofs to satisfy Lord Castlereagh that the decrees were repealed. Barlow replied, March 2, by a letter to Russell, recounting seven cases of ships which had been admitted to French ports contrary to the decrees, while in no case had the decrees been enforced.[201] “It is difficult to conceive,” he added, “probably impossible to procure, and certainly insulting to require, a mass of evidence more positive than this or more conclusive to every unprejudiced mind.” Hardly had he written this letter when news arrived that French frigates were burning American vessels on the ocean for infringing the decrees. March 12 he wrote to Bassano a letter of strong protest against these depredations, and a demand for redress. His letter received no answer. Had this been all, gross as the outrage was, nothing need have become public; but on the heels of this scandal came another more flagrant. March 16 the “Moniteur” published Bassano’s official report to the Emperor, which had the character of an Imperial message to the conservative Senate. This document began by defining neutral rights as claimed by France; and while one of these claims required that the flag should cover all goods except arms and other munitions of war, another declared that no blockade was real except of a port “invested, besieged, in the presumption of being taken;” and until these principles should be restored to force by England, “the Decrees of Berlin and Milan must be enforced toward Powers that let their flags be denationalized; the ports of the Continent are not to be opened to denationalized flags or to English merchandise.” Barlow could imagine no way of reconciling this language with Bassano’s assertions that the decrees were withdrawn, and he enclosed the report to Monroe in a letter speculating upon the reason of this contradiction:[202]—
“You will notice that the minister in his report says nothing particular of the United States, and nothing more precise than heretofore on the revocation of the decrees.... I am afraid he is forbidden to designate the United States as out of the gripe of those decrees, because the Emperor did not like the bill we have seen before Congress for admitting English goods contracted for before the Non-importation Law went into operation.”
Barlow could not but maintain that the decrees were repealed; yet the British government could hardly be required to hold the same opinion. Taking Bassano’s report as proof that the United States would no longer maintain the repeal, the Prince Regent issued, April 21, 1812, a formal declaration, that in case those decrees should at any future time by an authentic act publicly promulgated be expressly and unconditionally repealed, then the Orders in Council should be wholly and absolutely revoked. This step brought matters to a crisis. As soon as the Prince Regent’s declaration reached Paris, May 1, 1812, Barlow wrote to the French government a letter declaring that, between Bassano’s report and the Prince Regent’s declaration, proof that the decrees were repealed had become absolutely necessary for the United States, and he followed up his notes by a conversation in which he pressed on the French minister the danger of further trifling.[203]
Then came the climax of Imperial diplomacy. Neither Talleyrand nor Champagny had shown repugnance to falsehood; whatever end they wished, they used naturally and without hesitation the most convenient means. Yet free as they were from scruples, one might doubt whether Talleyrand or Champagny would have done what Bassano did; for when the American minister impatiently demanded some authentic evidence that the decrees were repealed, Bassano complained that such a demand should be made when the American government possessed the repealing decree itself. Barlow was struck dumb with astonishment when the French minister then passed to him a decree signed by Napoleon at St. Cloud, April 28, 1811, declaring his previous decrees non-existent for American vessels after Nov. 1, 1810.[204]
That the American minister should have lost self-possession in the face of an act so surprising and so unexpected was natural, for Talleyrand himself could hardly have controlled his features on seeing this document, which for an entire year had been sought by the whole world in vain, and which suddenly appeared as a paper so well known as to need only an allusion. In his embarrassment Barlow asked the vacant question whether this decree had been published, as though his surprise could be no greater had the document been printed in the “Moniteur” and the “National Intelligencer,” or been sent to Congress with the President’s Annual Message. Bassano replied that it had not been published, but had been communicated at the time to Jonathan Russell and sent to Serurier with orders to communicate it to the Secretary of State. These assertions increased the American minister’s embarrassment, for they implied a reflection on the American government which he could not resent without in his turn implying that Napoleon had invented the story so gravely told. Barlow said no more, but asked for a copy of the repealing decree, which was sent to him May 10.
If evidence were necessary to show that no such decree was issued April 28, 1811, Napoleon’s correspondence proves that the Emperor did not consider the subject until April 29, and his note to the Council dated that day is proof that no such decree had then been adopted.[205] Yet such a decree might naturally have been afterward ante-dated without objection. Had the Emperor signed it within the year 1811 he might have set what date upon it he liked, and need have made no mystery of the delay. The interest of Bassano’s conduct lay not so much in his producing an ante-dated paper as in his averring that the paper was not ante-dated, but had been communicated to the American government at the time. The flagrancy of the falsehood relieved it from the usual reproach of an attempt to deceive; but if it did not embarrass Bassano in the telling, it embarrassed President Madison beyond calculation in admitting.
Still more characteristic than the calmness with which Bassano made these announcements to the American minister at Paris, was the circumstantial gravity with which he repeated them to his own minister at Washington. Writing the same day, May 10, 1812, he enclosed a copy of the decree, explaining his reasons for doing so:[206]—
“I have learned from Mr. Barlow that he is not acquainted with the Decree of April 28, 1811, ... and I have addressed a copy to him. You yourself, sir, have never acknowledged its reception; you have never mentioned it in any of your despatches; you have never dwelt upon it in any of your interviews with the American Secretary of State. This silence makes me fear that the communication made of it to you under date of May 2, 1811, did not reach you, and I think it proper to enclose herewith a new copy.”
He explained at some length why he had ignored this decree in his report to the conservative Senate:
“It had become useless to recall in this report a measure in respect to which no one could longer raise a doubt; it would have been even improper to specify the Americans by name; it would have entailed other citations; it would have required too much prominence to be given to the true motives of the Senatus Consultum which was to be proposed. The Emperor had reason to complain of the numerous infractions made by Russia in the Continental system, in spite of her engagement to co-operate with and maintain it. Therefore against Russia were directed the provisions of that report; but although various circumstances rendered war inevitable, it was still necessary to avoid naming her while preparing forces against her.”