“No other alternative,” he explained,[221] “presented itself to me than to abandon the object and return to London, or to submit to the terms which it was sufficiently well understood France was willing to accept, and seemed in some measure to dictate, which amounted to this: that we should create a new loan of about seventy millions of livres, and transfer the same to Spain, who would immediately pass them over to France, in consideration of which we should be put in possession of the disputed territory, under stipulations which should provide for the adjustment of the ultimate right there, and reimbursement of the money by instalment in seven years.” “To submit to the terms proposed was altogether out of the question,” continued Monroe. Having led his Government to take the ground that West Florida had already been bought, he could not enter into a negotiation to buy it a second time. His instructions made this point a _sine quâ non_ of negotiation. Recognizing that under these circumstances further effort was useless, or in his own words that no other alternative presented itself but to abandon the object and return to London, Monroe intimated to Talleyrand that he meant not only to pay no money, but also to negotiate in spite of Napoleon; and started for Madrid. “I did not hesitate,” he wrote home,[222] “in many informal communications, the substance of which I was persuaded were made known to those in power, to declare most solemnly that I would sanction no measure which contemplated a payment of money to Spain in any transaction we might have with her in the affair,--by which was meant, by creation of stock or otherwise which took the money from our people; that neither the state of things between the parties, the example of France in a similar case, or my instructions, permitted it. These conversations were with a person who possessed the confidence of certain persons in power, as well as my own, though they were not of a nature to compromit either party. That circumstance enabled me to speak with the utmost freedom, and perhaps to say things which it might have been difficult to press directly in the same manner to the parties themselves.” In thus defying France, Monroe, if he resembled European diplomatists, must have aimed at giving his Government an opportunity to break with the Emperor and to proceed against Florida by means of force. That he should have still hoped for success in negotiating at Madrid was hardly possible. Armstrong thought his chance desperate.[223]