Bayonne Decree, April 17, 1808. of the laws of nations I have seized." Language such as this, supported by the tempting promise to restore the American ships he had captured, could only be the result of a deliberately planned policy on the part of Napoleon. By his Bayonne Decree, 17th April, 1808, he had given orders to seize all American vessels then in the ports of France, and such as should come in thereafter; and in an explanatory note of the 25th of April, 1808, addressed to the American minister at Paris, had stated that the decree of the 17th instant directed the seizure of vessels coming into the ports of France after that date, because no vessel of the United States could then navigate the seas without infringing their own laws, thus furnishing a presumption that they did so on British account or in British connection.
Finding that the French seizures were incessant, the American minister at Paris in the beginning of 1808 declared that the conduct of France towards the United States, instead of advancing the views of the Emperor, had an entirely contrary effect, and was calculated to defeat them. Whilst admitting[1] that the United States were ready to go to war with Great Britain for the purpose of avenging certain alleged outrages committed on American rights as a neutral nation, he reminded M. de Champigny that the French had also most grievously invaded those rights, showing at the same time that the reparation of those injuries, by relieving the American property from sequestration, and by renouncing for the future the right of seizure in such cases, would be the most efficient means of forming new and
- ↑ General Armstrong's letter, February 4, 1808.
