When Russell repaired to the Foreign Office, April 28, he was received by the new minister, who availed himself of his inexperience to ask many questions and to answer none. Russell had a long interview with no results; but this delay mattered little, for the Emperor needed no information. No sooner had he received the Non-intercourse Act of March 2 than he ordered his ministers to make a report on the situation of American commerce.[312] The order was due not so much to a wish of hearing what his ministers had to say as of telling them what they were to report:-- “The United States have not declared war on England, but they have recognized the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, since they have authorized their citizens to trade with France, and have forbidden them every relation with England. In strict public right, the Emperor ought to exact that the United States should declare war against England; but after all it is in some sort to make war when they consent that the Decree of Berlin should be applied to ships which shall have communicated with England. On this hypothesis, one would say: ‘The Decrees of Berlin and Milan are withdrawn as regards the United States; but as every ship which has touched in England, or is bound thither, is a vagrant that the laws punish and confiscate, it may be confiscated in France.’ If this reasoning could be established, nothing would remain but to take precautions for admitting none but American products on American ships.” This view of the contract to which American faith was bound, though quite the opposite of Madison’s, was liberal compared with its alternative:-- “Finally, if it should be impossible to trace out a good theory in this system, the best would be to gain time, leaving the principles of the matter a little obscure until we see the United States take sides; for it appears that that Government cannot remain long in its actual situation toward England, with whom it has also political discussions concerning the affairs of Spanish America.” The Emperor’s will was law. The Council set itself accordingly to the task of “leaving the principles of the matter a little obscure” until the United States should declare war against England; while the Emperor, not without reason, assumed that America had recognized the legality of his decrees. CHAPTER XIX. THE Emperor’s decision was made known to the American government by a letter[313] from Bassano to Russell, dated May 4, 1811, almost as curt as a declaration of war:--