that they have persuaded themselves to this effect, although it is incomprehensible to me. Bound, sir, to whom? To Bonaparte? Bound to Shylock? Bound to render up not only the pound of flesh, but every jot of blood in the Constitution? Does he come forward with his pockets swelled with American treasure; do his minions, fattened upon our soil, whether obtained by public rapine or private extortion, do they come forward, calling upon us to make sacrifices of our best interest on the shrine of their resentments, in the name, too, of good faith?"

The majority showed its usual weakness in debate, but rejected Randolph's motion by a vote of sixtyseven to forty-five; and after rejecting it, knew not what to do. Eppes reported a new bill to suspend for a time the operation of the non-intercourse, and a new debate began. February 9 Eppes rejoiced the House by opening a fresh hope of some decided policy. A new French minister was soon to arrive in place of Turreau, and further legislation must wait his arrival.

"He has left France," said Eppes, "at a time to bring us certain information on this question. I have no wish to enter on this interesting question with a bandage round my eyes. Whether France has complied with her engagements, whether France has failed in her engagements, cannot be a subject of ingenious speculation many days longer."

Further proceedings were suspended until Congress should learn what Napoleon's agent would say.1

1 Robert Smith's Address to the People, June 7, 1811.

The new minister arrived almost immediately. Unlike Turreau, Serurier was a diplomate by profession. He had last served as French minister at the Hague, where, by no fault of his own, he drove King Louis of Holland from his throne. February 16 he was presented to the President, and the next day had a long interview with Robert Smith, who learned that he brought no instructions or information of any kind on the one subject that engrossed diplomatic attention. The scene with Francis James Jackson was repeated with the French minister. Again and again Smith pressed his inquiries, which Serurier politely declined to answer except by resenting any suggestion that the Emperor would fail to keep his word.1

After this interview, on the same day, the President apparently held a Cabinet meeting, and probably also consulted certain party leaders in Congress; but no record of such conferences has been preserved, nor is anything known of the arguments that ended in the most hazardous decision yet risked. If disagreement took place, if Gallatin, Eppes, Robert Smith, or Crawford remonstrated against the course pursued, not a whisper of their arguments was heard beyond the Cabinet. Serurier himself is the only authority for inferring that some conference was probably held; but he knew so little, that in, giving to his Government an account of his first day in Washington he closed the despatch by reporting in a few lines the decision, of which he could have hardly suspected the 1 Serurier to Maret, Feb. 17, 1811; Archives des. Aff. Étr. MSS.

importance. His interview with Robert Smith took place on the morning of February 17; the afternoon was probably passed by the President and Cabinet in conference; in the evening Mrs. Madison held a reception, where Serurier was received with general cordiality:

"In coming away, Mr. Smith-probably intending to say something agreeable, and something that I might regard as the effect of our first conversations- assured me that he was authorized to give me the pledge that if (pour peu que) England should show the least new resistance to the withdrawal of her orders, the Government had decided to increase the stringency of the non-intercourse, and to give that measure all the effect it ought to have."

The decision to enforce and re-enforce the nonintercourse against England implied that the President considered Napoleon's Decrees to be withdrawn. February 17, at latest, the decision was made. February 19 the President sent to Congress a Message containing two French documents.1 The first was a letter, dated December 25, from the Duc de Massa, Minister of Justice, to the President of the Council of Prizes, which recited the words of Cadore's letter and the measures taken by the American government in consequence, and ordered that all captured American vessels should thenceforward not be judged according to the principles of the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, which "shall remain suspended;" but such captured vessels should be sequestrated, “the 1 State Papers, iii. 393.

rights of the proprietors being reserved to them until the 2d of February next, the period at which the United States, having fulfilled the engagement to cause their rights to be respected, the said captures shall be declared null by the Council." The second letter, of the same date, was written by Gaudin, Duc de Gaete, Minister of Finance, to the Director-General of the Customs, directing him thenceforward not to enforce the Berlin and Milan Decrees against American vessels.

On these letters, not on any communications from Serurier, the President rested his decision that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan were so revoked as no longer to violate the neutral commerce of the United States. Obviously they failed to prove more than that the decrees were partially suspended. According to these orders the decrees were not under any circumstances to be revoked, but their operation upon American commerce in France was to cease in case the Emperor should be satisfied that America had previously enforced against England the principles of the decrees. This was the converse of the American demand, and was in effect the attitude of England. The same packet which brought Jonathan Russell's despatch containing the two letters of the French ministers brought also the "Moniteur" of December 15, which contained the Duc de Cadore's official Report on Foreign Relations, a paper understood to express the Emperor's own language, and to be decisive as to the meaning of his foreign policy:

"Sire, as long as England shall persist in her Orders in Council, your Majesty will persist in your decrees; will oppose the blockade of the Continent to the blockade of the coast, and the confiscation of British merchandise on the Continent to the pillage on the seas. My duty obliges me to say to your Majesty, You cannot henceforward hope to recall your enemies to more moderate ideas except by perseverance in this system."

These documents, combined with a knowledge of the license system, showed the true scope and meaning of Cadore's pledge so clearly as to leave no pos- sibility of doubt. If America chose to accept these limitations of her neutral rights, she was at liberty to do so; but she could hardly require England to admit that the Berlin and Milan Decrees were in any sense revoked because American ships were thenceforward to be admitted to France subject to the system of those decrees. Napoleon concealed neither his policy nor his motives, and as these did not warrant the assertion that France had ceased to violate the neutral rights of America, President Madison was obliged to assume that the Emperor meant to do more. A month after his decision was made, he wrote to Jefferson a letter of speculation as to the reasons that prevented the Emperor from taking the action assumed to belong to his plans: 1

"It is, as you remark, difficult to understand the meaning of Bonaparte toward us. There is little doubt that his want of money and his ignorance of commerce have

1 Madison to Jefferson, March 18, 1811; Works, ii. 490.