“As for the principle advanced,--that though wishing war on England we do not wish to wage it on neutrals,--this principle arises from an error. The English want no neutrals and suffer none; they allow the Americans to navigate, so far as they carry English merchandise and sail on English account; all the certificates of French consuls and all other papers with which they are furnished are false papers. In short, there is to-day no neutral, because the English want none, and stop every vessel not freighted on their account. Not a single vessel has entered the ports of Russia with so-called American papers which has not come really from England.”[329] Armstrong, quitting Paris Sept. 10, 1810, wrote to Madison in his last despatch a few significant words on the subject,[330] suggesting that Napoleon’s true motive in reviving the energy of his restrictions on commerce was, among others, the assistance it lent to his views and influence on the Baltic. No other explanation was reasonable. Napoleon intended to force Russia into a dilemma, and he succeeded. The Czar, pressed beyond endurance, at last turned upon Napoleon with an act of defiance that startled and delighted Russia. December 1 Roumanzoff communicated to Caulaincourt the Czar’s refusal to seize, confiscate, or shut his ports against colonial produce.[331] At about the same time the merchants of St. Petersburg framed a memorial to the Imperial council, asking for a general prohibition of French luxuries as the only means of preventing the drain of specie and the further depreciation of the paper currency. On this memorial a hot debate occurred in the Imperial council. Roumanzoff opposed the measure as tending to a quarrel with France; and when overruled, he insisted on entering his formal protest on the journal.[332] The Czar acquiesced in the majority’s decision, and December 19 the Imperial ukase appeared, admitting American produce on terms remarkably liberal, but striking a violent blow at the industries of France. Napoleon replied by recalling Caulaincourt and by sending a new ambassador, Count Lauriston, to St. Petersburg, carrying with his credentials an autograph letter to the Czar.[333]