Russell made no more efforts, but waited impatiently for the arrival of Joel Barlow, while Napoleon bethought himself only of his favorite means for quieting Madison’s anger. August 23 the Emperor ordered[317] Bassano to give his minister at Washington instructions calculated to sharpen the cupidity of the United States. Serurier was to be active in effecting the independence of Spanish America, was to concert measures for that purpose with the President, promise arms and supplies, employ the American government and American agents for his objects, and in all respects give careful attention to what passed in the colonies; yet in regard to Florida, the only Spanish colony in which Madison took personal interest, Napoleon hinted other views to Bassano in a message[318] too curious for omission. “You spoke to me this morning,” he wrote August 28, “of instructions received by the American _chargé_ on the affair of Florida. You might insinuate the following idea,--that in consideration of some millions of piastres, Spain in her present condition of penury would cede the Floridas. Insinuate this, while adding that though I do not take it ill that America should seize the Floridas, I can in no way interfere, since these countries do not belong to me.” With this touch of character, the great Emperor turned from American affairs to devote all his energies to matters about the Baltic. Yet so deeply were American interests founded in the affairs of Europe that even in the Baltic they were the rock on which Napoleon’s destiny split; for the quarrels which in the summer of 1811 became violent between France and the two independent Baltic Powers--Russia and Sweden--were chiefly due to those omnipresent American ships, which throve under pillage and challenged confiscation. Madison’s wisdom in sending a minister to St. Petersburg was proved more quickly than he could have expected. Between March 1 and Nov. 1, 1811, at one of the most critical moments in the world’s history, President Madison had no other full minister accredited in Europe than his envoy to Russia; but whatever mortifications he suffered from Napoleon, were more than repaid by means of this Russian mission.