though himself a
member of the Administration, he perceives every day more clearly
that his only prospect of success hereafter depends upon the
failure of the Administration by measures of which he must take
care to make known his disapprobation."

President Monroe was profoundly anxious for the consummation of the
treaty, and though for a time he was in perfect accord with Mr. Adams,
yet as the Spanish minister gradually drew nearer and nearer to a full
compliance with the American demands, Monroe began to fear that the
Secretary would carry his unyielding habit too far, and by insistence
upon extreme points which might well enough be given up, would allow
the country to drift into war.

Fortunately, as it turned out, Mr. Adams was not afraid to take the
whole responsibility of success or failure upon his own shoulders,
showing indeed a high and admirable courage and constancy amid such
grave perplexities, in which it seemed that all his future political
fortunes were involved. He caused the proffered mediation of (p. 114)
Great Britain to be rejected. He availed himself of no aid save only
the services of Mons. de Neuville, the French minister, who took a
warm interest in the negotiation, expostulated and argued constantly
with Don Onis and sometimes with Mr. Adams, served as a channel of
communication and carried messages, propositions, and denials, which
could better come filtered through a neutral go-between than pass
direct from principal to principal. In fact, Mr. Adams needed no other
kind of aid except just this which was so readily furnished by the
civil and obliging Frenchman. As if he had been a mathematician
solving a problem in dynamics, he seemed to have measured the precise
line to which the severe pressure of Spanish difficulties would compel
Don Onis to advance. This line he drew sharply, and taking his stand
upon it in the beginning he made no important alterations in it to the
end. Day by day the Spaniard would reluctantly approach toward him at
one point or another, solemnly protesting that he could not make
another move, by argument and entreaty urging, almost imploring, Mr.
Adams in turn to advance and meet him. But Mr. Adams stood rigidly
still, sometimes not a little vexed by the other's lingering manoeuvres,
and actually once saying to the courtly Spaniard that he "was so (p. 115)
wearied out with the discussion that it had become nauseous;" and,
again, that he "re