These instructions showed no change in the Imperial policy even in consequence of the war declared by the United States against England. The Decrees of Berlin and Milan were no more repealed by the Decree of 1811, so unexpectedly produced by Bassano, than they had been by Champagny’s famous letter of August 5, 1810; no order was ever given to any official of the empire that carried the revocation into effect. While Bassano protested to Barlow against implications of the Emperor’s good faith, Bassano’s colleagues equally protested to Barlow that they had no authority to exempt American ships from the operation of the decrees. Decrès, the Minister of Marine, gave orders to his cruisers to destroy all vessels infringing the decrees, and not even an apology could be wrung from him for the act. If Barlow lost patience at this conduct, the Duc Dalberg, with German simple-mindedness, felt even more acutely the odium of his part, and sent to Bassano remonstrances as strong as those he received from Barlow. August 11, only one day after Bassano wrote from Wilna the instruction just quoted, Dalberg wrote from Paris in language such as had been of late seldom used in the Emperor’s service:[210]-- “If we wish to inspire any confidence in the American government, of what use is an isolated proof of revocation if a little while afterward another proof overthrows it, and if Mr. Barlow, by his means of information at the Department of Commerce, at that of the Marine, at the Council of Prizes, learns that they are ignorant of it; that nothing is changed in that legislation, and that it may at any instant be again enforced? Under such circumstances, I pray you, Monsieur le Duc, to consider what is the good of all the fine phrases and fair words that I may use to Mr. Barlow when he is every moment receiving news that our privateers in the Baltic and on the coast permit themselves the most reckless (_les plus fortes_) violations against the property of Americans. In such circumstances the art of diplomacy becomes insufficient, a sorry game (_triste métier_) of which no one is long the dupe.” Dalberg seemed to suspect that Bassano himself knew little of the true situation:-- “Your Excellency is perhaps not informed of the complaints made by Americans to Mr. Barlow. If you believe that, while nothing is settled in regard to American navigation, the Americans enjoy the favor of navigating freely, of being well treated in our ports, and of being exposed to no annoyance, you deceive yourself. What with the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, whose revocation is not yet known to the authorities; what with our forms of custom-house examinations; what with the multiplied obstacles to all commercial movement,--this is impossible.”