“The Emperor applauded the general embargo laid by the United States on all their vessels, because that measure, if it has been prejudicial to France, had in it at least nothing offensive to her honor. It has caused her to lose her colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Cayenne; the Emperor has not complained of it. He has made this sacrifice to the principle which has determined the Americans to lay the embargo.... The Act of March 1 [1809] raised the embargo and substituted for it a measure the most injurious to the interests of France. This Act, of which the Emperor knew nothing until very lately, interdicted to American vessels the commerce of France at the time it authorized that to Spain, Naples, and Holland,--that is to say, to the countries under French influence,--and denounced confiscation against all French vessels which should enter the ports of America. Reprisal was a right, and commanded by the dignity of France,--a circumstance on which it was impossible to make a compromise (_de transiger_). The sequestration of all the American vessels in France has been the necessary consequence of the measure taken by Congress.” This preamble, interesting for the novelty of its assertions both of fact and law, led to the conclusion that the Act of May 1, 1810, was a retreat from the Act of March 1, 1809, and warranted France in accepting the offer extended by both laws to the nation which should first “cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States.” “In this new state of things,” concluded Cadore, “I am authorized to declare to you, sir, that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are revoked, and that after November 1 they will cease to have effect,--it being understood (_bien entendu_) that in consequence of this declaration the English are to revoke their Orders in Council, and renounce the new principles of blockade which they have wished to establish; or that the United States, conformably to the Act you have just communicated, cause their rights to be respected by the English.” No phraseology could have more embarrassed President Madison, while, as Napoleon had remarked to Montalivet a few days before, “it is evident that we commit ourselves to nothing.”[206] So closely was the Imperial promise imitated from that given by Erskine that the President could hardly reject it, although no American merchant would have risked so much as a cargo of salt-fish on a pledge of such a kind from such a man. As though to warn the Americans, Napoleon added personal assurances that gave to the whole proceeding an unpleasant air of burlesque:--