execute the Berlin Decree until Napoleon threatened to march an army upon him; he connived at its evasion; he issued licenses and admitted cargoes as he pleased; and he did this with such systematic disregard of remonstrance that Napoleon became at last angry. July 17, some days after the battle of Wagram, the Emperor wrote from Vienna to Louis,[112]-- “You complain of a newspaper article; it is France that has a right to complain of the bad spirit which reigns with you.... It may not be your fault, but it is none the less true that Holland is an English province.” At the same time he ordered Champagny to notify the Dutch government officially that if it did not of its own accord place itself on the same footing with France, it would be in danger of war.[113] While this correspondence was still going on, Armstrong imagined that he might obtain some advantage by visiting Holland. He amused himself during the idle August by a journey to Amsterdam, where he obtained, August 19, a private interview with King Louis. Three days before, Flushing had capitulated to the English expedition which was supposed to be threatening Antwerp. At Vienna Napoleon was negotiating for peace, and between the obstinacy of Austria and the British attacks on Madrid and Antwerp he found himself ill at ease. President Madison had just issued his Proclamation of August 9 reviving the Non-intercourse Act, which kept open the American trade with Holland. Everywhere the situation was confused, irritable, and hard to understand. A general system of cross-purposes seemed to govern the political movements of the world. King Louis told Armstrong that he was quarrelling seriously with the Emperor on account of the American trade, but was bent on protecting it at all hazards. This declaration to a foreign minister accredited not to himself but to his brother, showed Louis attempting with the aid of foreign nations a systematic opposition to Napoleon’s will. He denounced his brother’s system as “the triumph of immorality over justice.... The system is bad,--so bad that it cannot last; but in the mean time we are the sufferers.” Even the British expedition to Walcheren troubled Louis chiefly because it forced him under his brother’s despotism. “It is an erring policy, and will have no solid or lasting effect but that of drawing upon us a French army which will extinguish all that is left of ancient Holland. Can it be wisdom in England to see this country a province of France?”