sion was one of perplexity at the object of an errand which appeared too absurd for discussion. The two agents returned to the Continent, and reported the result of their journey. Meanwhile Napoleon ordered Marshal Oudinot to march his army-corps into Holland, a step which brought King Louis to immediate submission. "I promise you," wrote Louis, "to follow faithfully all the engagements you shall impose upon me. I give you my word of honor to follow them faithfully and loyally from the moment I shall have undertaken them."1 While Cadore was still negotiating with Armstrong for an arrangement with America, he was also employed in framing a treaty with Louis, which exacted the seizure of all American ships and merchandise in Dutch ports.2 Louis came to Paris, and March 16 signed the treaty which by a secret stipulation provided for the seizure of American property.3

Matters stood thus April 1, 1810, when the ceremonies of the Imperial marriage interrupted for the moment further action. Napoleon had carried his point in regard to the punishment of America; but the difficulties he had already met were trifling com pared with the difficulties to come.

1 Thiers, xii. 117.

2 Napoleon to Champagny, Feb. 22, 1810; Correspondance

xx. 235.

8 Thiers, xii. 117.

CHAPTER XII.

NAPOLEON set out, April 27, with his new Empress on a wedding journey to Holland. In the course of his journey an accident revealed to him the secret correspondence which Fouché had conducted through Fagan with the British government. Nothing criminal was alleged, nor was it evident that the Minister of Police had acted contrary to the Emperor's admitted wishes; but since the fall of Talleyrand, Fouché alone had considered himself so necessary to the Imperial service as to affect independence, and the opportunity to discipline him could not be lost. June 3 he was disgraced, and exiled to Italy. General Savary, Duc de Rovigo, succeeded him as Minister of Police.

The fate of King Louis was almost equally swift. When he returned to Holland after promising entire submission and signing the treaty of March 16, he could not endure the disgrace of carrying his pledges into effect. He tried to evade the surrender of the American ships, and to resist the military occupation of his kingdom. He showed public sympathy with the Emperor's opponents, and with riotous popular proceedings at Amsterdam. Once more the Emperor

VOL. V.-16

was obliged to treat him as an enemy. June 24 the French troops were ordered to occupy Amsterdam, and July 3 Louis, abdicating his throne, took refuge in Germany. July 8 Napoleon signed a Decree annexing Holland to France.1

The United States at the same time received their punishment for opposing the Imperial will. The Decree of Rambouillet, though signed March 23, was published only May 14, when the sequestrations previously made in Holland, Spain, Italy, and France became in a manner legalized. The value of the seizures in Holland and Spain was estimated by the Emperor in arranging his budget for the current year as follows: 2 American cargoes previously seized at Antwerp, two million dollars; cargoes surrendered by Holland, two million four hundred thousand dollars; seizures in Spain, one million six hundred thousand dollars.

In this estimate of six million dollars the seizures in France, Denmark, Hamburg, Italy, and Naples were not included. The American consul at Paris reported to Armstrong that between April 1809 and April 1810 fifty-one American ships had been seized in the ports of France, forty-four in the ports of Spain, twenty-eight in those of Naples, and eleven in those of Holland. Assuming an average value

1 Napoleon to Decrès, 8 July, 1810. Correspondance, xx. 450. 2 Note, July 5, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 444.

Rapport à l'Empereur, 25 Août, 1810; Archives des Aff. Étrs. MSS.

of thirty thousand dollars, these one hundred and thirty-four American ships represented values exceeding four millions. Adding to Napoleon's estimate of six millions the Consul's reported seizure of seventy-nine ships in France and Naples, a sum of nearly $8,400,000 was attained. In this estimate the seizures at Hamburg, in Denmark, and in the Baltic were not included. On the whole the loss occasioned to Americans could not be estimated at less than ten millions, even after allowing for English property disguised as American. The exports from the United States during the six months after the embargo amounted to fifty-two million dollars,1 exclusive of the ships; and as England offered a less profitable market than the Continent, one fifth of this commerce might easily have fallen into Napoleon's hands. Twenty years afterward the government of France paid five million dollars as indemnity for a portion of the seizures, from which Napoleon by his own account received not less than seven millions.

Profitable as this sweeping confiscation was, and thoroughly as Napoleon overbore opposition in his family and Cabinet, such measures in no way promised to retrieve the disaster his system suffered from the defection of America. While England protected American ships in their attempts to counteract his system in Spain, Holland, and in the Baltic, the Emperor regarded American trade as identical with

1 Gallatin to the Speaker, Feb. 7, 1810; State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, i. 812.

British, and confiscated it accordingly; but by doing so he exhausted his means of punishment, and since he could not march armies to New York and Baltimore as he marched them to Amsterdam and Hamburg, he could only return on his steps and effect by diplomacy what he could not effect by force. The Act of March 1, 1809, was a thorn in his side; but the news which arrived toward the end of June, 1810, that Congress had repealed even that slight obstacle to trade with England made some corrective action inevitable. The Act of May 1, 1810, struck a blow at the Emperor such as no Power in Europe dared aim, for it threw open to British trade a market in the United States which would alone compensate England for the loss of her trade with France and Holland. Macon's Act made the Milan Decree useless.

Napoleon no sooner learned that Congress had renewed intercourse with England and France, than he wrote an interesting note to Montalivet dated June 25, the day after he ordered his army to seize Amsterdam.

"The Americans," he said, "have raised the embargo on their ships so that all American ships can leave America to come to France; but those which should come here would be sequestered, because all would either have been visited by English ships or would have touched in England. It is therefore probable that no American ship will come into our ports without being assured of what France means to do in regard to them."

1 Notes pour le Ministre de l'Intérieur, 25 Juin, 1810; Correspondance, xx. 431.