Profitable as this sweeping confiscation was, and thoroughly as Napoleon overbore opposition in his family and Cabinet, such measures in no way promised to retrieve the disaster his system suffered from the defection of America. While England protected American ships in their attempts to counteract his system in Spain, Holland, and in the Baltic, the Emperor regarded American trade as identical with British, and confiscated it accordingly; but by doing so he exhausted his means of punishment, and since he could not march armies to New York and Baltimore as he marched them to Amsterdam and Hamburg, he could only return on his steps and effect by diplomacy what he could not effect by force. The Act of March 1, 1809, was a thorn in his side; but the news which arrived toward the end of June, 1810, that Congress had repealed even that slight obstacle to trade with England made some corrective action inevitable. The Act of May 1, 1810, struck a blow at the Emperor such as no Power in Europe dared aim, for it threw open to British trade a market in the United States which would alone compensate England for the loss of her trade with France and Holland. Macon’s Act made the Milan Decree useless. Napoleon no sooner learned that Congress had renewed intercourse with England and France, than he wrote an interesting note[194] to Montalivet dated June 25, the day after he ordered his army to seize Amsterdam. “The Americans,” he said, “have raised the embargo on their ships so that all American ships can leave America to come to France; but those which should come here would be sequestered, because all would either have been visited by English ships or would have touched in England. It is therefore probable that no American ship will come into our ports without being assured of what France means to do in regard to them.” France could evidently do one of three things,--either avowedly maintain her decrees, or expressly revoke them, or seem to revoke them while in fact maintaining them. The process by which Napoleon made his choice was characteristic. “We may do two things,” he continued,--“either declare that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are repealed, and replace commerce where it formerly was; or announce that the Decrees will be repealed September 1, if on that date the English have repealed the Orders in Council. Or the English will withdraw their Orders in Council, and then we shall have to ascertain whether the situation that follows will be advantageous to us.” Assuming that the decrees and orders were withdrawn, and American ships admitted as neutrals, the Emperor explained how he should still enforce his system as before:--