find a substitute; and on looking round I could see none but the United States who were at all competent to this object.” So far as concerned England, the alliance promised great advantages; but Armstrong’s chief anxiety affected France, and when he attempted to enlist Roumanzoff in resistance to Napoleon’s robberies, he found no encouragement. Roumanzoff had already tried his influence with Napoleon on behalf of the Danes, who wanted compensation for their plundered commerce. “Give them a civil answer,” replied Napoleon,[25] “but of course one never pays for this sort of thing,--_On ne paye jamais ces choses-là, n’est-ce pas?_” From Roumanzoff’s refusal, Armstrong inferred that no change need be hoped in Napoleon’s conduct. “On the contrary,” he wrote to Madison, the day when Napoleon abandoned the pursuit of Sir John Moore,[26] “their anti-neutral system is more rigidly observed; the embargo on ships of the United States found here before the imperial decrees were issued is continued; every ship of ours coming into a port of France or of her allies is immediately seized and sequestered; cargoes regularly admitted to entry by the custom-houses are withheld from their owners; ships most obviously exceptions to the operation of the Decrees have been recently condemned; and--what in my view of the subject does not admit of aggravation--the burning of the ship ‘Brutus’ on the high seas, so far from being disavowed, is substantially justified.” Had this been all, perhaps President Madison and Congress might have waited with courtesy, if not with hope, for Napoleon’s pleasure; but grievances equally serious ran back to the year 1803, and not one of them had been redressed by France. “It is now three years since one of her admirals, on the principle of self-preservation, burnt four of our ships at sea, and the Emperor immediately acknowledged the debt and repeatedly promised to discharge it; but not a shilling has yet been paid, nor is it probable that a shilling ever will be paid. Besides this breach of justice in the first instance and of promise in the last, we have to complain that bills of exchange drawn to the order of citizens of the United States by the public functionaries of France, to the amount of many millions of dollars, and for articles of the first necessity, and drawn many years ago, are not only not paid, but are officially denounced as not payable.” Armstrong’s temper, bad in the winter, became worse in the spring, until his letters to the Department of State seemed to leave no remedy but war for the grievances he described. The angry tone of his despatches was not counteracted by fair words in the instructions sent by Champagny to Turreau, which were calculated to irritate President Madison beyond patience.