Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/368

1798. was a cautious announcement of the principles to be pursued in the administration of foreign affairs which he immediately afterward assumed.

July 24, 1797, commissioners arrived from the United States to treat for a settlement of the difficulties then existing between the two countries; but Talleyrand refused to negotiate without a gift of twelve hundred thousand francs,—amounting to about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Two of the American commissioners, in the middle of April, 1798, returned home and war seemed inevitable.

Thus the month of April, 1798, was a moment of crisis in American affairs. Talleyrand had succeeded in driving Godoy from office, and in securing greater subservience from his successor, Don Mariano Luis de Urquijo, who had been chief clerk in the Foreign Department, and who acted as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Simultaneously Talleyrand carried his quarrel with the United States to the verge of a rupture; and at the same time Godoy's orders compelled Governor Gayoso of Louisiana to deliver Natchez to the United States. The actual delivery of Natchez was hardly yet known in Europe; and the President of the United States at Philadelphia had but lately heard that the Spaniards were fairly gone, when Talleyrand drafted instructions for the Citizen Guillemardet, whom he was sending as minister to Madrid. These instructions offered a glimpse into the heart of Talleyrand's policy.