g to Great Britain they could
obtain a license to enter them, so that the effect was the same; and
by forged papers this license system was so extended "that the
commerce of _England_ could advantageously find its way to those
ports."[334]

Wellesley delayed reply till December 29.[335] He regretted the
intrusion of these closing remarks, which might tend to interfere with
a conciliatory spirit, but without further comment on them addressed
himself to the main question. His Government did not find the
"notification" of the repeal of the French Decrees such as would
justify it in recalling the Orders in Council. The United States
having demanded the formal revocation of the blockade of May, 1806, as
well as of the Orders in Council, he "must conclude, combining your
requisition with that of the French Minister, that America demands the
revocation of that order of blockade, as a practical instance of our
renunciation of those principles of blockade which are condemned by
the French Government." This inference seems overstrained; but
certainly much greater substantial concession was required of Great
Britain than of France. Wellesley intimated that this concert of
action was partial--not neutral--between the two belligerents. "I
trust that the justice of the American Government will not consider
that France, by the repeal of her obnoxious decrees, _under such a
condition_,[336] has placed the question in that state which can
warrant America in enforcing the Non-Intercourse Act against Great
Britain, and not against France." He reminded Pinkney of the situation
in which the commerce of neutral nations had been placed by many
recent acts of the French Government; and said that its system of
violence and injustice required some precautions of defence on the
part of Great Britain. In conclusion, his Majesty stood ready to
repeal, when the French Decrees should be repealed without conditions
injurious to the maritime rights and honor of the United Kingdom.

Unhappily for Pinkney's argument on the actuality of Napoleon's
repeal, on the very day of his own writing, December 10, the American
_charge_[337] in Paris, Jonathan Russell, was sending Champagny a
remonstrance[338] upon the seizure of an American vessel at Bordeaux,
under the decrees of Berlin and Milan, on December 1,--a month after
their asserted repeal. That the Director of Customs at a principal
seaport should understand them to be in force, nearly four months
afte