Neither the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of the Treasury, nor the Emperor in these discussions alluded to the proposed Decree of Vienna, the draft of which was sent to Paris in August, confiscating all American ships in reprisal for the seizures of French ships threatened by the Non-intercourse Act. Although that decree was the point which the Emperor meant to reach, not until January 25--when Champagny, after dismissing Armstrong, reported the interview to Napoleon, bringing with him at the Emperor’s request the text of the Non-intercourse Act--did the Emperor at last revert to the ideas of the Vienna Decree. The long hesitation proved how little satisfactory the plea of retaliation was; but no other excuse could be devised for a measure which Napoleon insisted upon carrying out, and which Champagny had no choice but to execute. The Emperor dictated the draft of a note,[176] in which the principles of confiscation were to be laid down:-- “If American ships have been sequestered in France, France only imitates the example given her by the American government; and the undersigned recalls to Mr. Armstrong the Act of Congress of March 1, 1809, which orders in certain cases the sequestration and confiscation of French ships, excludes them from American ports, and interdicts France to the Americans. It is in reprisal of this last provision that the American ships have been seized in Spain and Naples. The league against England, which has the cause of neutrals for its object, embraces now all the Continental peoples, and permits none of them to enjoy commercial advantages of which France is deprived. France will permit it in no place where her influence extends; but she is ready to grant every favor to the ships of a neutral Power which shall not have subjected themselves to a tribute, and shall recognize only the laws of their own country, not those of a foreign government.... If the Minister of the United States has the power to conclude a convention proper to attain the object indicated, the undersigned is ordered to give all his care to it, and to occupy himself upon it without interruption.”