The Czar’s letter of September 20 completed the embroglio, which remained unintelligible to every one except himself. Cathcart was the most mystified of all the victims to the Czar’s double attitude. At the time when Alexander thus for the second time authorized Roumanzoff to disregard the express entreaties of the British government, Cathcart was making an effort to explain to Castlereagh the Czar’s first interference. If Castlereagh understood his minister’s ideas, he was gifted with more than common penetration. “I believe the not communicating the rescript of the Emperor concerning the American plenipotentiaries to have been the effect of accident,” wrote Cathcart[457] from Töplitz September 25; “but what is singular is that notwithstanding his [Nesselrode’s] letter of the ninth [July], by the Emperor’s command, to Count Lieven, this communication from and instruction to Roumanzoff was not known to Count Nesselrode till this day, when I mentioned it to him, having received no caution to do otherwise, and he was not at all pleased with it. It was during the advance to Dresden. But I cannot help thinking that there must have been some policy of Roumanzoff’s stated in regard to keeping hold of the mediation, which, whether it was detailed or not, would not escape the Emperor’s penetration, and upon which he may have been induced to act as far as sanctioning the proposal of treating at _London_ under Russia’s mediation, which the Prince Regent’s government might accept or reject as they pleased; and that not wishing to go at that time into a discussion of maritime rights with either Nesselrode or me, he afterward forgot it.” Cathcart’s style was involved, but his perplexity was evident. His remarks related only to the Czar’s first letter to Roumanzoff, written about July 20, not “during the advance to Dresden.” He knew nothing of the Czar’s second letter to Roumanzoff, dated September 20, renewing the same authority, only five days before Cathcart’s labored attempt to explain the first. Of the second letter, as of the first, neither Nesselrode nor Cathcart was informed.