“To countenance delay, no doubt, a new order was issued to the custom-houses on the 18th ult., that no vessels not having licenses, coming from foreign countries, be admitted without the special authority of the Emperor. This indeed makes the detention indefinite, as when once a case is before the Emperor it can no longer be inquired after, much less pressed, and it is impossible to say when it may attract the Imperial attention. It is my belief that our property will be kept within the control of this government until it be officially known here that the Non-intercourse Act against England went into operation with undiminished rigor on the 2d of February.” Under such circumstances, the idea that the United States were bound by a contract with France--the principle on which Congress legislated in the month of February--had no meaning to Jonathan Russell at Paris, where as late as April 1 not a step had yet been taken toward making the contract complete. “I trust,” wrote Russell, March 15, “that I shall not be understood in anything which I have written in this letter to urge any obligation on the United States to execute _at all_ the Non-intercourse Law; this obligation is certainly weakened, if not destroyed, by the conduct of the Government here.” Russell never misunderstood the situation or misled his Government. Although Napoleon’s habit of deception was the theme of every historian and moralist, the more remarkable trait was his frequent effort to avoid or postpone an evidently necessary falsehood, and, above all, his incapacity to adhere to any consistent untruth. Napoleon was easily understood by men of his own stamp; but he was not wholly misunderstood by men like Armstrong and Russell. He did not choose to revoke the decrees, and he made no secret of his reasons even to the American government. In the spring of 1811 the Emperor was surrounded by difficulties caused by his interference with trade. The financial storm which overspread England in 1810 extended to France in the following winter, and not only swept away credit and capital throughout the empire, but also embarrassed Napoleon’s finances and roused fresh resistance to his experiments on commerce. The resistance irritated him, and he showed his anger repeatedly in public. At the Tuileries, March 17, he addressed some deputies of the Hanseatic League in a tone which still betrayed an effort at self-control:[308]--