Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/96

86 French decree itself. Considering that America had in this sense acquiesced in Sir William Scott's decisions and the wholesale confiscation of her commerce, in the impressment of her native citizens and their compulsory service in the British navy, in the blockade of New York, in Fox's paper blockade of the German coast, in Lord Howick's Order in Council, and perhaps even in the "Chesapeake" outrage, Perceval's argument must have seemed convincing to Napoleon, if not to President Jefferson. If the law of nations thus laid down was sound, the continued presence of American citizens in British ships of war was alone sufficient proof of American acquiescence in impressment to warrant Napoleon in acting without regard to neutral rights. From a neutral or French point of view Perceval's reasoning not only conceded the legality of the Berlin Decree, but barred his own right of retaliation, since England, as the first and worst offender, could not properly profit by her own misdeeds.

There Perceval rested his case, so far as concerned the law. His three grounds were (1) That as a neutral the United States could complain of no retaliation between belligerents, unless this retaliation was avowedly adopted with a view to injure neutrals; (2) That America ceased to be a neutral from the moment that she wished England to observe rules which France refused to recognize, and which America did not at once compel France to recognize; and (3) That the continued existence and