Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/403

1806.
 * "I consider the imperial decree of the 2lst of November last," wrote Decrès, "as thus far conveying no modification of the regulations at present observed in France with regard to neutral navigators, nor consequently of the convention of Sept. 30, 1800, with the United States of America; . . . but it will be proper that your Excellency should communicate with the Minister of Exterior Relations as to what concerns the correspondence of citizens of the United States with England. . . . It will not escape General Armstrong that my answers cannot have the development which they would receive from the Minister of Exterior Relations, and that it is naturally to him that he ought to address himself for these explanations, which I am very happy to give him, because he wishes them, but upon which I have much less positive information than the Prince of Benevento."

With this explanation, such as it was, Armstrong was obliged to content himself; and the year 1806 closed, leaving President Jefferson at the mercy of battles soon to be fought in the most distant corner of Germany, where the Emperor Alexander of Russia was gathering his forces for a conflict more terrible than Europe had yet seen.