The condition thus prescribed seemed both reasonable and mild in view of the recent and continuous nature of the offence; but Madison could not, even if he would, allow his own or public attention to be permanently diverted from England. As early as June 22 he had begun to reconstruct in his own mind the machinery of his restrictive system. “On the first publication of the despatches by the ‘John Adams,’” he wrote to Jefferson,[253] “so strong a feeling was produced by Armstrong’s picture of the French robbery that the attitude in which England was placed by the correspondence between Pinkney and Wellesley was overlooked. The public attention is beginning to fix itself on the proof it affords that the original sin against neutrals lies with Great Britain; and that while she acknowledges it, she persists in it.” The theory of original sin led to many conclusions hard to reconcile; but, as regarded Napoleon, Madison’s idea seemed both sensible and dignified,--that England’s original fault in no way justified the recent acts of France, which were equivalent to war on the United States, not as one among neutrals, but as a particular enemy. Fresh instructions to Armstrong, dated July 5,[254] reiterated the complaints, offers, and conditions of the despatch sent one month before. Especially the condition precedent to action under the law of May 1 was repeated with emphasis:-- “As has been heretofore stated to you, a satisfactory provision for restoring the property lately surprised and seized, by the order or at the instance of the French government, must be combined with a repeal of the French edicts with a view to a non-intercourse with Great Britain, such a provision being an indispensable evidence of the just purpose of France toward the United States. And you will moreover be careful, in arranging such a provision for that particular case of spoliations, not to weaken the ground on which a redress of others may be justly pursued.” The instructions of June 5 and July 5 went their way; but although Armstrong duly received them, and wrote to Cadore a letter evidently founded on the despatch of June 5, he made no express allusion to his instructions in writing either to the French government or to his own. Although he remained in Paris till September 12, and on that day received from Cadore an explicit avowal that the sequestered property would not be restored, but that “the principles of reprisal must be the law,” he made no protest.