On leaving Smith, Turreau went to see Gallatin, “whose opinion in the Cabinet is rarely favorable to us.” “Mr. Gallatin (by the way long since on bad terms with Mr. Smith) told me that he believed in war; that England could not suffer the execution of measures so prejudicial to her, and especially in the actual circumstances could not renounce the prerogatives of her maritime supremacy and of her commercial ascendency.” Both Smith and Gallatin evidently expected that war was to result, not from the further action of the United States, but from the resentment and retaliation of England. They regarded the non-intercourse as a measure of compulsion which would require England either to resent it or to yield. Having decided to accept Cadore’s letter as proof that an actual repeal of the French Decrees, within the meaning of the Act of Congress, had taken place November 1, the President issued, November 2, his proclamation declaring that “it has been officially made known to this Government that the said edicts of France have been so revoked as that they ceased, on the said first day of the present month, to violate the neutral commerce of the United States;” and simultaneously Gallatin issued a circular to the collectors of customs, announcing that commercial intercourse with Great Britain would cease Feb. 2, 1811. By this means Madison succeeded in reverting to his methods of peaceful coercion. As concerned England, he could be blamed only on the ground that his methods were admittedly inadequate, as Gallatin, only a year before, had officially complained. Toward England the United States had stood for five years in a position which warranted them in adopting any measure of reprisal. The people of America alone had a right to object that when Madison began his attack on England by proclaiming the French Decrees to be revoked, he made himself a party to Napoleon’s fraud, and could scarcely blame the Federalists for replying that neither in honor nor in patriotism were they bound to abet him in such a scheme. The Proclamation of Nov. 2, 1810, was not the only measure of the autumn which exposed the President to something more severe than criticism. At the moment when he challenged a contest with England on the assertion that Napoleon had withdrawn his decrees, Madison resumed his encroachments on Spain in a form equally open to objection.