ger American, not even
a denationalized American, but an English vessel. Under this
supposition, Napoleon luminously inferred, "It could be said: The
Decrees of Berlin and Milan are recalled as to the United States, but,
as every ship which has stopped in England, or is destined thither, is
a ship unacknowledged (_sans aveu_), which American laws punish and
confiscate, she may be confiscated in France." The Emperor concluded
that should this theory not be capable of substantiation, the matter
might for the present be left obscure.[364] On September 13 the ships
in question had not been liberated.

Coincidently with his note to Bassano, Russell wrote to Monroe, "It is
my conviction that the great object of their policy is to entangle us
in a war with England. They therefore abstain from doing any act which
would furnish clear and unequivocal testimony of the revocation of
their decrees, lest it should induce the extinction of the British
Orders, and thereby appease our irritation against their enemy. Hence,
of all the captured vessels since November 1, the three which were
liberated were precisely those which had not violated the
Decrees."[365] Yet, such were the exigencies of the debate with
England, those three cases were transmitted by him at the same time to
the American _charge_ in London as evidence of the revocation.[366] To
the French Minister he wrote again, August 8, "After the declarations
of M. de Champagny and yourself, I cannot permit myself to doubt the
revocation; ... but I may be allowed to lament that no fact has yet
come to my knowledge of a character unequivocally and incontrovertibly
to confirm that revocation." "That none of the captured vessels have
been condemned, instead of proving the extinction of the edicts,
appears rather to be evidence, at best, of a commutation of the
penalty from prompt confiscation to perpetual detention."[367] The
matter was further complicated by an announcement of Napoleon to the
Chamber of Commerce, in April of the same year, that the Berlin and
Milan Decrees were the fundamental law of the Empire concerning
neutral commerce, and that American ships would be repelled from
French ports, unless the United States conformed to those decrees, by
excluding British ships and merchandise.[368] Under such conditions,
argument with a sceptical British ministry was attended with
difficulties. The position to which the Government had become reduced,
by endeavoring to play off Fr