Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

---

Rambouillet decree.

Professing to be indignant at what seemed to be partiality shown to England by the Americans in their restrictive acts, Napoleon caused the seizure and confiscation of many American vessels and their cargoes. John Armstrong, then United States minister to France, remonstrated, and when he learned that several vessels were to be sold, he offered to the French government a vigorous protest, in which he recapitulated [375] the many aggressions which American commerce had suffered from French cruisers. This remonstrance was answered by a decree framed at Rambouillet March 23, 1810, but not issued until May 1, that ordered the sale of 132 American vessels which had been seized, worth, with their cargoes, $8,000,000, the proceeds to be placed in the French military chest. It also ordered that “all American vessels which should enter French ports, or ports occupied by French troops, should be seized and sequestered.”