- "In actual circumstances," he wrote to Decrès,[1] "navigation offers all sorts of difficulties. France cannot regard as neutral flags which enjoy no consideration. That of America, however exposed it may be to the insults of the English, has a sort of existence, since the English still keep some measure in regard to it, and it imposes on them. That of Portugal and that of Denmark exist no longer."
This opinion was written before the British ministry touched the Orders in Council; and the "sort of existence" which Napoleon conceded to the United States was already so vague as to be not easily known from the extinction which had fallen upon Portugal and Denmark. A few days afterward General Armstrong received officially an order[2] from the Emperor which expressly declared that the Berlin Decree admitted of no exception in favor of American vessels; and this step was followed by a letter[3] from Champagny, dated October 7, to the same effect. At the same time the Council of Prizes pronounced judgment in the case of the American ship "Horizon," wrecked some six months before near Morlaix. The Court decreed that such part of the cargo as was not of English origin should be restored to its owners; but that the merchandise which was acknowledged to be of English manufacture or to come from English
