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HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
Ch. 13.
of force. That he should have still hoped for success in negotiating at Madrid was hardly possible. Armstrong thought his chance desperate.[1]
- "Mr. Monroe has no doubt communicated to you," he wrote to the Secretary of State, "the motives which induced him to leave England in prosecution of his mission to Spain, and while here to attempt to draw from this Government some new declaration of support of our construction of the late treaty. With this view a note was prepared and transmitted through Livingston, the receipt of which was acknowledged by Mr. Talleyrand with a promise that 'an answer should be given to it as soon as the Emperor should have signified his will on the subject.' Having waited nearly a month, and no answer being given, having some reason to believe that any declaration from this Court now would be less favorable that those already made, and fearful lest something might be lost at Madrid, while nothing could be gained here, he set out on the 8th instant for Spain. I have but little hope, however, that he will be able to do more than fulfil the forms of his mission."
Armstrong preferred, as he expressed it, "an effort (which cannot fail) to do the business at home." He had already discovered that the Emperor was personally irritated with the Americans, that he took no pains to conceal it, and that this irritation was a cause of his reserve.
- "I have employed every means in my power to ascertain the cause of this cause, and have learned from a
- ↑ Armstrong to Madison, Dec. 24, 1804; MSS. State Department Archives.
