Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/169

Rh marque from Benito Juarez, the Mexican president, whom Napoleon had recently hounded into the mountains. And that undoubtedly they would be ruinous to French commerce and schemes in those latitudes.

This, all in a letter, in the nature of confiden-tial information, he dispatched by courier. He took very good care that it never reached its destination. The consul at Marseilles was not the person he wished to delude. Providentially it was stolen on the road and found its way at once into a newspaper.

The happy conclusion is soon told. Johnson, the historian says:

"In all this there was no truth whatever, but the Emperor supposed it all to be true, and he made haste to stop the sailing of the Confederate ships, and to assure Bigelow of his friendship for the United States."