war party at home, whatever may have been
his motive. Then, and not till then, were the decrees actually revoked
by Napoleon. In May, 1812, more than a month after the President had
recommended an embargo, the hostile purport of which was so well
understood, a decree was proclaimed by the emperor which for the first
time really revoked those of Berlin and Milan. True, it was
dated--"purported to be dated," it was said in an official English
document--April, 1811. But that was of no moment; the essential point
was, that it had never seen the light; that any hint of its existence
had never been given to the American government, or its representatives
abroad, till the United States had taken measures to "cause their rights
to be respected by the English," which was the original condition of a
revocation of the decrees. Its ostensible date was when the news reached
France that non-intercourse had been again enforced against England in
March, 1811; but its promulgation was to all intents and purposes the
real date, when news reached France, in April or May, 1812, that war
against England was finally determined upon.

The Duke of Bassano, the French minister, had not, moreover, brought out
this year-old decree without pressure from the American minister,
Barlow. The President had written Barlow, in that February letter
already quoted, that if his expected dispatches did not "exhibit the
conduct of the French government in better colors than it has yet
assumed, there will be but one sentiment in this country, and I need not
say what that will be." When the dispatches came, Mr. Madison received
no assurances of redress for past wrongs and no promises for the future;
but he learned, on the contrary, that Bassano, in a recent report to the
emperor, had referred to the decrees of Berlin and Milan as still in
force against all neutral nations which submitted to the seizure of
their ships by the British when containing contraband goods or enemy's
property. Naturally the British ministry was not slow in presenting this
precious acknowledgment to the United States as a proof that she had all
along been in the wrong, and that in common justice to England the
non-importation act should now be repealed. The assurance was at the
same time repeated, possibly in a tone of considerable satisfaction,
that when Napoleon really should revoke his decrees Great Britain was
ready, as she always had been, to follow his example with her orders. It