armed ships being excluded from American ports; and further, that, in case either of them should recall its obnoxious orders or decrees, the President should announce the fact by proclamation, and if the other did not do the same within three months, the non-intercourse act should be revived against that one, — a measure adopted only because Congress, in its helplessness, did not know what else to do.
The conduct of France had meanwhile been no less offensive than that of Great Britain. On all sorts of pretexts American ships were seized in the harbors and waters controlled by French power. A spirited remonstrance on the part of Armstrong, the American Minister, was answered by the issue of the Rambouillet Decree in May, 1810, ordering the sale of American vessels and cargoes seized, and directing like confiscation of all American vessels entering any ports under the control of France. This decree was designed to stop the surreptitious trade that was still being carried on between England and the continent in American bottoms. When it failed in accomplishing that end, Napoleon instructed his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Champagny, to inform the American Minister that the Berlin and Milan Decrees were revoked, and would cease to have effect on November 1, 1810, if the English would revoke their Orders in Council, and recall their new principles of blockade, or if the United States would “cause their rights to be respected by the English,” — in
