Madison and Monroe, as well as Jefferson, in the course of their diplomacy had many mortifications to suffer; but they rarely received a reprimand more keen than this. Yet its sharpness was so delicately covered by the habitual forms of Talleyrand’s diplomacy that Americans, who were accustomed to hear and to use strong language, hardly felt the wound it was intended to inflict. After hearing Yrujo denounce an act of their government as an “atrocious libel,” they were not shocked to hear Talleyrand denounce the same act as one of violence which nothing could authorize. The force of Talleyrand’s language was more apparent to Godoy than to Madison, for it bore out every expression of Yrujo and Cevallos. The Prince of Peace received a copy of Talleyrand’s note at the moment when Monroe, after almost a month of weary winter travel, joined Pinckney, who had for six months been employed only in writing letter after letter begging for succor and support. Don Pedro Cevallos, with this public pledge in his hand, and with secret French pledges covering every point of the negotiation in his desk, could afford to meet with good humor the first visit of the new American plenipotentiary. Pinckney’s humiliation was extreme. After breaking off relations with Cevallos and pledging himself to demand his passports and to leave Spain, he had been reduced to admit that his Government disavowed him; and not only was he obliged to remain at Madrid, but also to sue for permission to resume relations with Cevallos. The Spanish government good-naturedly and somewhat contemptuously permitted him to do so; and he was only distressed by the fear that Monroe might refuse to let him take part in the new negotiation, for he was with reason confident that Monroe would be obliged to follow in his own footsteps,--that the United States could save its dignity and influence only by war. At the beginning of the new year, Jan. 2, 1805, Monroe entered Madrid to snatch Florida from the grasp of Spain and France. The negotiation fell chiefly within Jefferson’s second term, upon which it had serious results. But while Monroe, busy at Madrid with a quarrel which could lead only to disappointment or war, thus left the legation at London for eight months to take care of itself, events were occurring which warned President Jefferson that the supreme test of his principles was near at hand, and that a storm was threatening from the shores of Great Britain compared with which all other dangers were trivial. CHAPTER XIV.