“Great Britain has a right to complain that ... not only has America suffered her trade to be moulded into the means of annoyance to Great Britain under the provisions of the French Decrees, but construing those decrees as extinct, upon a deceitful declaration of the French Cabinet, she has enforced her Non-importation Act against England. Under these circumstances I am instructed by my Government to urge to that of the United States the injustice of thus enforcing that Act against his Majesty’s dominions; and I cannot but hope that a spirit of justice will induce the United States government to reconsider the line of conduct they have pursued, and at least to re-establish their former state of strict neutrality.” President Madison had put himself, little by little, in a position where he had reason to fear the popular effect of such appeals; but awkward as Madison’s position was, that of Monroe was many degrees worse. He had accepted office in April as the representative of Republicans who believed that Napoleon’s decrees were not repealed, and the objects of his ambition seemed to depend on reversing Madison’s course. In July he found himself in painful straits. Obliged to maintain that Napoleon’s decrees were repealed, he was reduced to sacrifice his own official agent in the effort. Foster reported, as a matter of surprise to himself, remarks of Monroe still more surprising to history. “I have urged,” reported Foster, July 7,[41] “with every argument I could think of, the injustice of the Non-importation Act which was passed in the last session of Congress, while there were doubts entertained even here as to the repeal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees; but to my surprise I find it now maintained that there existed no doubt on the subject at the time of passing the Act, and Mr. Russell is censured by his Government for publicly averring that the ship ‘New Orleans Packet’ was seized under their operation,--not that it is denied, however, that she was seized under them by our construction. Mr. Monroe, indeed, though he qualified his blame of Mr. Russell by praising his zeal, yet allowed to me that much of their present embarrassment was owing to his statement.” “It would be fatiguing to your Lordship,” continued Foster, “were I to describe the various shadows of argument to which the American minister had recourse in order to prove his statement of the decrees having been repealed in as far as America had a right to expect.”