“It is possible,” he said, “that Congress may repeal the embargo, the continuation of which would do us more harm than a state of war. For us in the present situation all is loss; whereas, however powerful the English may be, war would put us in a way of doing them much harm, because our people are enterprising. Yet as it is probable that Congress will favor raising the embargo if the Orders in Council are withdrawn, it would be necessary for your interests, if you are unwilling to withdraw your decrees, that at least you should promise their withdrawal on condition that the embargo be withdrawn in your favor. You will also observe that were the embargo withdrawn in favor of the English, this will not close our differences with them, because never--no, never--will there be an arrangement with them if they do not renounce the impressment of our seamen on our ships.” With this avowal, which Turreau understood as a sort of pledge that Jefferson would lean toward war with England rather than with France, the French minister was obliged to content himself; while he pressed on his Government the assurance that both the President and the secretary wished more than all else to obtain the Floridas. Such reports were little calculated to change the Emperor’s course. Human ingenuity discovered but one way to break Napoleon’s will, and this single method was that of showing power to break his plans. In due time Armstrong received his instructions of May 2, and wrote June 10 to Champagny a note declining the proposed alliance, and expressing the satisfaction which his Government felt at hearing the Emperor’s approval of “a cautionary occupation of the Floridas.” Napoleon, who was still at Bayonne in the flush of his power, no sooner read this reply than he wrote to Champagny,[252]-- “Answer the American minister that you do not know what he means about the occupation of the Floridas; and that the Americans, being at peace with the Spaniards, cannot occupy the Floridas without the permission or the request of the King of Spain.” Armstrong, a few days afterward, was astonished by receiving from Champagny a note[253] denying positively that any suggestion had ever been made to warrant an American occupation of the Floridas without an express request from the King of Spain: “The Emperor has neither the right nor the wish to authorize an infraction of international law, contrary to the interests of an independent Power, his ally and his friend.” When Napoleon chose to deny a fact, argument was thrown away; yet Armstrong could not do otherwise than recall Champagny’s own words, which he did in a formal note, and there left the matter at rest, writing to his Government that the change in tone had “no doubt grown out of the new relations which the Floridas bear to this government since the abdication of Charles IV.”[254]