ed
upon it. Both these asserted the revocation of the French Decrees. The
British Cabinet, seizing a happy opportunity, asked of the world the
production of the revocation, or else the justification of its own
course. The demand went far to silence the growing discontents at
home, and to embarrass the American Government in the grounds upon
which it had chosen to base its action. It was well calculated also
to disconcert the Emperor, for, unless he did something more definite,
dissension would increase in the United States, where, as Barlow
wrote, "It is well known to the world, for our public documents are
full of it, that great doubts exist, even among our best informed
merchants, and in the halls of Congress itself, whether the Berlin and
Milan Decrees are to this day repealed, or even modified, in regard to
the United States." The sentence is taken from a letter[373] which he
addressed to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, May 1, 1812, when
he had received the recent British Order. He pointed out how astutely
this step was calculated to undo the effect of Champagny's letter, and
to weaken the American Administration at the critical moment when it
was known to be preparing for war. He urged that the French Government
should now make and publish an authentic Act, declaring the Berlin and
Milan Decrees, as relative to the United States, to have ceased in
November, 1810. "Such an act is absolutely necessary to the American
Government; and, though solicited as an accommodation, it may be
demanded as a right. If it was the duty of France to cease to apply
those Decrees to the United States, it is equally her duty to
promulgate it to the world in as formal a manner as we have
promulgated our law for the exclusion of British merchandise. She
ought to declare and publish the non-application of these Decrees in
the same forms in which she enacted the Decrees. The President has
instructed me to propose and press this object."

At last the demand was made which should have been enforced eighteen
months before. After sending the letter, Barlow had "a pretty sharp
conversation" with Bassano, in which he perceived a singular
reluctance to answer his letter. At last the Duke placed before him a
Decree, drawn up in due and customary form, dated a year
before,--April 28, 1811,--declaring that "the Decrees of Berlin and
Milan are definitively, and to date from the first day of November
last, [1810], considered as not having exis