failure. Nothing could be done with Randolph, who in a final interview at the White House, flatly declared "that he too had a character to support and principles to maintain," and avowed his determined opposition to the whole scheme of buying Florida of France. Jefferson, little as he liked to quarrel, accepted the challenge. Negotiations then ceased, and a party schism began.
If Randolph could not be overcome in debate, he might at least be overborne by numbers; if the best part of the old Republican party went with him, the rank and file of Northern and Western democrats would remain to support the Administration. Once more the committee was called together. Bidwell moved to appropriate two millions for foreign relations; the majority rejected his motion and adopted a report echoing the warlike tone of the President's public message, and closing with a Resolution to raise troops for the defence of the Southern frontier "from Spanish inroad and insult, and to chastise the same." This report was laid before the House by Randolph Jan. 3, 1806, when two additional Resolutions were immediately moved,—one appropriating money for extraordinary expenses in foreign intercourse, the other continuing the Mediterranean Fund for a new term of years; and the three Resolutions were referred to the House in Committee of the Whole, with closed doors.
Monday, Jan. 6, 1806, the debate began; and throughout the following week the House sat in secret
