“He told me, a good deal to my disappointment I confess, that the President did not think it would lead to any utility to order an answer to be written to either of my last notes; that he could not now entertain the question as to whether the French Decrees were repealed, having already been convinced and declared that they were so. He said that the case of the two American ships which were burned could not be said to come under the Berlin and Milan Decrees, however objectionable the act was to this Government; that the declaration of the French commodore of his having orders to burn all ships bound to or from an enemy’s port was given only verbally, and might not have been well understood by the American captain, who did not very well understand French; while the declaration in writing only alluded to ships bound to or from Lisbon and Cadiz.” Nothing could be more humiliating to Monroe than the resort to subterfuge like this; but the President left no outlet of escape. The Committee of Foreign Relations decided in favor of an embargo; and April 1, the day after this interview, Madison sent to Congress a secret Message, which was read with closed doors:-- “Considering it as expedient, under existing circumstances and prospects, that a general embargo be laid on all vessels now in port or hereafter arriving for the period of sixty days, I recommend the immediate passage of a law to that effect.” CHAPTER X.