After enumerating the threats and aggressions of the United States government against Spain during the last three years, the report disposed of the American claims, one by one, in few words. First, the spoliations, which had been formally abandoned by treaty; second, the claim for losses rising from the interruption of _entrepôt_ at New Orleans, which “should be terminated by the treaty of cession,--the acquisition of an immense country might throw out of view some anterior losses;” finally, the claim to West Florida,--a species of attack on the Emperor’s dignity and good faith which merited some expression of his displeasure. To support this view, Talleyrand related the history of the French negotiation for West Florida and its failure, commenting on the manner in which the Americans had fabricated their claim, and coming at last to a conclusion studiously moderate, and evidently in harmony with the views of Hauterive as expressed to Monroe. Talleyrand rarely wrote such papers with his own hand; probably they were drawn up under his directions by Hauterive, or some other subordinate of the Office, in the form of suggestions rather than advice. “According to such evidence, no one can suppose the United States to be convinced of the justice of their rights; and we are warranted in thinking that the Federal government, as a result of confidence in its own strength, of its ambition, and its ascendency in America, raises pretensions to a part of Florida in order to show itself afterward more exacting toward Spain. The Emperor will feel that justice requires him not to recognize such pretensions. If he should assist by his good offices an arrangement between the United States and Spain, he would wish good faith and impartiality for its base. Only in case the United States should desist from their unjust pretensions to West Florida, and return to the forms of civility and decorum,--from which in their relations with each other governments should never depart,--could the Emperor allow himself to second at the Court of Madrid the project of acquisition of the two Floridas. Then perhaps the Emperor might think that this country is less suited to Spain now that it is separated from her other colonies, and that it is better suited to the United States because a part of their Western rivers cross the Floridas before flowing into the Gulf of Mexico; and finally, that Spain may see in her actual situation, and in the expenses entailed on her by the war, some motives for listening to the offers of the Federal government.”