Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/326

1804. made this point a sine quâ non of negotiation. Recognizing that under these circumstances further effort was useless, or in his own words that no other alternative presented itself but to abandon the object and return to London, Monroe intimated to Talleyrand that he meant not only to pay no money, but also to negotiate in spite of Napoleon; and started for Madrid.


 * "I did not hesitate," he wrote home, "in many informal communications, the substance of which I was persuaded were made known to those in power, to declare most solemnly that I would sanction no measure which contemplated a payment of money to Spain in any transaction we might have with her in the affair,—by which was meant, by creation of stock or otherwise which took the money from our people; that neither the state of things between the parties, the example of France in a similar case, or my instructions, permitted it. These conversations were with a person who possessed the confidence of certain persons in power, as well as my own, though they were not of a nature to compromit either party.  That circumstance enabled me to speak with the utmost freedom, and perhaps to say things which it might have been difficult to press directly in the same manner to the parties themselves."

If thus defying France, Monroe, if he resembled European diplomatists, must have aimed at giving his Government an opportunity to break with the Emperor and to proceed against Florida by means