Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/439

1807. can guarantee that New Orleans would be ours if we only showed a wish for it. All reports, and I have had such, both official and positive, agree as to the regrets expressed by the great majority of inhabitants at not living under French rule."

In the middle of February, at a moment when Americans expected daily the arrival of a British treaty marked by generous concessions, Napoleon's Berlin Decree reached the United States. Commerce was instantly paralyzed, and merchants, Congressmen, Cabinet, and President turned to Turreau anxiously inquiring what was meant by this blockade of the British Islands by a Power which could not keep so much as a frigate at sea. Turreau could give them no answer. " Your Excellency will readily believe," he wrote home, "that this circumstance does not put us in a better position here." The influence of France in the United States was never lower than at the moment when England turned Lord Grenville and Lord Erskine out of power, in order to install Spencer Perceval and Lord Eldon at the head of a Tory reaction. Jefferson's objections to a British treaty would have had no weight with the Senate if the treaty had been tolerable; the Berlin Decree and the Emperor's conduct in regard to Florida would have reconciled Madison to almost any British alliance. Turreau was so well aware of the danger that he exerted himself in remonstrances and semi-threats,