Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/308

1804. In spite of success that should have filled his cup of ambition to overflowing, Livingston was far from satisfied. Neither the President nor the Secretary of State liked him; and to the latter he was a possible rival, who might become dangerous if the authority of President Jefferson, which was Madison's great support, should wane, and should New York claim the presidency from Virginia. Monroe distrusted Livingston, believing him to grasp at the whole credit of the Louisiana treaty, and to be intriguing to withdraw the Florida negotiation from Monroe's hands by causing its transfer from Madrid to Paris. The Secretary of State was perpetually annoyed by his minister. Sometimes Livingston experimented on Spain, sometimes on England. At one moment he sent to the First Consul an indiscreet memorial that brought a remonstrance from the British government; at another he fell into a virulent quarrel with the American claims commissioners under the Louisiana treaty. His claims convention was admitted to be full of mistakes which he did not himself attempt to defend, while the American consul at Paris declared that his conduct in regard to certain claims was dictated by blind and insatiable vanity, if not by corrupt and criminal motives.

Mistakes cost Livingston little serious annoyance;