Russell felt the embarrassment of the position he was called to fill. Armstrong departed September 12, bearing Cadore’s promise that the decrees should cease to operate November 1, and saying as little as possible of a condition precedent. The 1st of November came, and Russell asked the Duc de Cadore whether the revocation had taken place; but a month passed without his receiving an answer. December 4, 1810, Russell wrote to the Secretary of State,[294]-- “No one here except the Emperor knows if the Berlin and Milan Decrees be absolutely revoked or not; and no one dares inquire of him concerning them. The general opinion of those with whom I have conversed on the subject is that they are revoked. There are indeed among those who entertain this opinion several counsellors of State; but this is of little importance, as the construction which the Emperor may choose to adopt will alone prevail.” At about the same time Russell wrote to Pinkney at London a letter[295] expressing the opinion that, as the decrees had not been executed for one entire month against any vessel arriving in France, this fact created a presumption that the decrees were repealed. He could not be blamed for an opinion so cautious, yet he was mistaken in committing himself even to that extent, for he learned a few days afterward that two American vessels had been seized at Bordeaux, and he found himself obliged to write the Duc de Cadore a strong remonstrance on the ground that as this was the first case that had occurred since November 1 to which the decrees could have applied, the seizures created a presumption that the decrees were not repealed.[296] Russell’s instructions from America, including the President’s proclamation of November 2, arrived three days later, December 13, requiring him to assume the revocation of the decrees; but only two days after receiving them, he read in the “Moniteur” of December 15 Cadore’s official report to the Emperor declaring that the decrees would never be revoked as long as England maintained her blockades; and again, December 17, he found in the same newspaper the Count de Semonville’s official address before the Senate, declaring that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan should be the “palladium of the seas.”