Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/102

90 demand that the American government should help him in doing what he was powerless to effect without its aid. Talleyrand immediately wrote to Armstrong a letter in which he tried to put the Emperor's commands into a shape more diplomatic, by treating the Haytians as enemies of the human race, against whom it was right that the United States should interpose with measures of hostility: —


 * "As the seriousness of the facts which occasion this complaint obliges his Majesty to consider as good prize everything which shall enter into the part of St. Domingo occupied by the rebels, and everything coming out, he persuades himself that the government of the United States will take on its part, against this commerce at once illicit and contrary to all the principles of the law of nations, all the repressive and authoritative measures proper to put an end to it. This system of impunity and tolerance must last no longer (ne pourrait durer davantage)."

For the third time within six months Talleyrand used the word "must" to the President of the United States. Once the President had been told that he must abandon his Spanish claims; then that he must show no public respect for Moreau; finally he was told still more authoritatively that he must stop a trade which France was unable to stop, and which would continue in British hands if Congress should obey Napoleon's order. Talleyrand directed