That this revolution in the Cabinet had some bearing upon American interests was more than likely; for not only was Marbois an honest man and a warm friend of the United States, but the weight that dragged him down was nothing less than the weight of Spanish finances. The story may be shortly told.[264] Napoleon’s wars and repudiation of every inconvenient debt threw the French mercantile class into general bankruptcy. In the want of coin to supply the demands of the Emperor and of the merchants, the Bank of France issued dangerous amounts of paper money. To support these issues specie had to be obtained; and the empire which produced specie was Spain. Spain might be forced to give up her treasures; her arrears of subsidy alone would if paid add greatly to Marbois’s resources. Yet the treasures of Spain were shut in Mexico and Peru; they could be brought to Europe only under danger of capture; and a means by which ten or twenty million Mexican dollars could run the gauntlet of British cruisers and reach in safety the Bank of France was a matter of necessity to Marbois. The ordinary business of the Treasury in discounts and contracts was conducted through a firm called the “Négociants réunis,” consisting of three capitalists,--Messrs. Ouvrard, Desprez, and Yanlerberghe. Ouvrard, the most active of the three, went to Madrid; and by lending assistance to the sorely pressed Treasury and trade of Spain induced the Spanish government to give him the privilege of importing bullion from Mexico at the rate of seventy-five cents on the dollar. The risk of importation was worth twenty-five per cent on any cargo; but Ouvrard meant to escape all risk. He had plans of his own, involving partnership with the British government itself through the Hopes and Barings of Amsterdam and London; he proposed to draw some five million dollars from Mexico by giving to the United States government drafts on South America in settlement of the Spanish spoliations, besides getting no less than ten million dollars from the United States government for the Floridas. The unnamed negotiator who came to Armstrong in September, 1805, with Talleyrand’s autograph instructions was an agent of Marbois and Ouvrard, whose errand was doubtless known to the Emperor. Meanwhile the Treasury, the Bank, and the “Négociants réunis” supported each other by loans, discounts, and indorsements, largely resting on Spanish bonds, and made face as well as they could against commercial embarrassments and Napoleon’s arbitrary calls for great sums of coin; but the Treasury, being in truth the only solvent member of the partnership, must ultimately be responsible for the entire loss whenever matters should come to liquidation.