332 Ersldnes agreement. Rambouillet Decree. [1809-10 United States. To each note presented by Erskine a suitable answer was returned ; and, everything having been arranged, a proclamation made known to the country that on and after the 10th of June trade with Great Britain and her colonies would once more be open to the merchants of America. The joy in the shipping ports was great indeed. The riggers and sailmakers could not do half the work offered them. Every shipyard was crowded with vessels waiting to be scraped and cleaned. Long columns of notices of ships for charter and ships for sale appeared in the newspapers ; and, when the appointed day came, a fleet of more than 600 vessels loaded to the water's edge set sail. Meantime the report of Erskine's agreement had reached his government, which promptly disavowed his act and recalled him. It was late in July when news of these proceedings reached Madison, who as speedily as possible issued a second proclamation, recalling the first and again stopping commercial intercourse with Great Britain. Erskine's successor was Francis J. Jackson, whose conduct at the court of St Petersburg and later at Copenhagen had won for him an unenviable reputation. This he fully maintained by so grossly insulting the American government that all communication with him was refused; and he returned to England, with nothing done. A third minister, Rose, was equally unsuccessful, and withdrew in 1810. The Non-intercourse Act having failed to bring about a repeal of the French Decrees or the British Orders in Council, Congress now tried another form of retaliation, and Macon's Bill No. 2 was placed on the Statute-books (May 1, 1810). This law repealed the Non-intercourse Act of 1809, and opened trade with all the world. But it authorised the President, in case either Great Britain or France should, before March 3, 1811, revoke her edicts or so modify them as to damage the neutral trade of the United States no longer, to stop trade with the nation which still refused to revoke or modify its edicts. Of this provision Napoleon now pretended to take advantage. The Emperor had replied to the Non-intercourse Act of 1809 with the Rambouillet Decree of March, 1810. This Decree ordered the seizure of every American ship and cargo that, since May 20, 1809, had entered a port of France, or any of her colonies, or any country occupied by her army, or which it might enter thereafter. Though signed in March, the Decree was kept secret till May, by which time cargoes to the value of $10,000,000 had been seized in the ports of France, Spain, Holland, and Naples. Under the Decree they were soon sold, and the money placed in the caisse d^amortissement. While this high-handed robbery was going on, a copy of the United States Gazette containing the Macon Act of 1810 reached the American Minister at Paris. He forwarded the Gazette to Champagny, who in turn showed it to Napoleon. The chance for a new act of treachery was too
