“Make a sketch of a reply to the American minister. It will be easy for you to make him understand that I am master to do here what America does there; that when America embargoes French ships entering her ports, I have the right to reciprocate. You will explain to him how that law came to our knowledge only a short time ago, and only when I had knowledge of it did I immediately prescribe the same measure; that a few days before, I was busying myself with provisions for raising the actual prohibitions on American merchandise, when the course of commerce (_la voie du commerce_) made known to me that our honor was involved, and that no compromise was possible; that I conceive America as entitled to prevent her ships from coming to England and France; that I approved this last measure, though there was much to be said about it; but that I cannot recognize that she should arrogate the right of seizing French ships in her ports without putting herself in the case of incurring reciprocity.” One must answer as one can the question why Cadore, who had in his hands Armstrong’s letter of April 29, 1809,[180] officially communicating the Non-intercourse Act, should not have suggested to Napoleon that some limit to his failings of memory ought to be observed. Napoleon’s memory was sometimes overtasked by the mass of details he undertook to carry in his mind, but a striking incident always impressed itself there. Mme. de Rémusat[181] told how Grétry, who as member of the Institute regularly attended the Imperial audiences, was almost as regularly asked by Napoleon, “Who are you?” Tired at last of this rough question, Grétry replied by an answer equally blunt: “Sire, toujours Grétry;” and thenceforward the Emperor never failed to remember him. The United States in a similar tone recalled their affairs to the Emperor’s memory by the Non-intercourse Act; but had this “toujours Grétry” not been enough, Napoleon’s financial needs also made him peculiarly alive to every event that could relieve them, and his correspondence proved that the Non-intercourse Act as early as May, 1809, impressed him deeply. Yet in March, 1810, he not only convinced himself that this Act had just come to his knowledge, producing in him an outburst of national dignity, but he also convinced his Minister of Foreign Relations, who knew the contrary, that these impressions were true, and made him witness them by his signature.