By this time Yrujo was boiling with such wrath as a Spaniard alone could imagine or express. His good-will vanished from the moment he saw that to save Florida he must do battle with President, Secretary of State, Congress, and people. One insult had followed another with startling rapidity. The President’s _pêle-mêle_, of which the story will be told hereafter, wounded him personally. The cold reception of his protest against the Louisiana cession; the captiousness of Madison’s replies to his remonstrances; the armed seizure of New Orleans with which he was threatened; the sudden disregard of his friendship and great services; the open eagerness of the Government to incite Bonaparte to plunder and dismember Spain; the rejection of the claims convention in March, and its sudden approval by the Senate in January, as though to obtain all the money Spain was willing to give before taking by force territory vital to her empire; and above all, the passage of this law annexing the Floridas without excuse or explanation,--all these causes combined to change Yrujo’s ancient friendship into hatred. In the midst of the complicated legislation about Louisiana, while the Mobile Act was under discussion, Jefferson sent to the Senate, Dec. 21, 1803, the correspondence about the Spanish claims, and among the rest an adverse opinion which Yrujo had obtained from five prominent American lawyers on an abstract case in regard to the Franco-Spanish spoliations. Madison was particularly annoyed by this legal opinion, and thought it should bring these five gentlemen within the penalties of the law passed Jan. 30, 1799, commonly known as Logan’s Act. Senator Bradley of Vermont moved for a committee, which reported in favor of directing the President to institute proceedings against Jared Ingersoll, William Rawle, J. B. McKean, Peter S. Duponceau, and Edward Livingston,--five lawyers whose legal, social, and political character made a prosecution as unwise in politics as it was doubtful in law. The Senate having at the moment too many prosecutions already on its hands, let Senator Bradley’s Report lie unnoticed, and soon afterward confirmed the claims convention by a vote of eighteen to eight,[166]--barely two thirds, the least factious of the Federalists joining the majority, and by this unpartisan act causing in the end more embarrassment to the party in power than the most ingenious factiousness could have plotted. Madison, in the midst of his measures for pressing the acquisition of Florida, sent the ratified claims convention to Madrid. The period fixed for ratification had long since expired, and the attitude of the United States toward Florida had altered the feelings and interests of Spain; but either Madison was unaware of the change, or he wished to embarrass Godoy. He added in his letter to Pinckney,[167] “It was judged best, on the whole, no longer to deprive that class of our citizens who are comprehended in the