Yet Russell’s position was not quite so desperate as it seemed. Certainly the decrees were not revoked; but he had a fair hope of obtaining some formal act warranting him in claiming their revocation. Although Napoleon’s motives often seemed mysterious except to men familiar with his mind, yet one may venture to guess, since guess one must, that he had looked for little success from the manœuvre of announcing the revocation of his decrees as concerned the United States. Perhaps he dictated Cadore’s letter of August 5 rather in order to prevent America from declaring war against himself than in the faith that a trick, that to his eye would have been transparent, could effect what all his efforts for ten years past had failed to bring about,--a war between the United States and Great Britain. The Emperor showed certainly almost as lively surprise as pleasure, when December 12 he received the President’s proclamation of November 2, reviving the non-intercourse against England. His pleasure was the greater when he learned that President Madison had adopted his suggestion not only in this instance, but also in requiring of England the withdrawal of Fox’s blockade of 1806 as a _sine qua non_ of any future renewal of commerce. Delighted with his success, not only did the Emperor take no offence at the President’s almost simultaneous proclamation for the seizure of West Florida, but rather his first impulse was to lose not a moment in fixing Madison in his new attitude. He wrote a hurried letter[297] on the instant to Cadore, ordering him if possible to send fresh instructions to Serurier, who was already on his way to succeed Turreau as French minister at Washington:-- “Send me the draft of a despatch for M. Serurier, if he is still at Bayonne.... You will show in this letter the satisfaction I have felt in reading the last letters from America. You will give the assurance that if the American government is decided to maintain the independence of its flag, it will find every kind of aid and privileges in this country. Your letter will of course be in cipher. In it you will make known that I am in no way opposed to the Floridas as becoming an American possession; that I desire, in general, whatever can favor the independence of Spanish America. You will make the same communication to the American _chargé d’affaires_, who will write in cipher to his Government that I am favorable to the cause of American independence; and that as we do not found our commerce on exclusive pretensions, I shall see with pleasure the independence of a great nation, provided it be not under the influence of England.”