Armstrong had little acquaintance with the person who brought the memorandum for his sole credential, and knew him only as a political agent of the government, who rested his claim to credit not on any authority from the Emperor, but on an unsigned document in Talleyrand’s handwriting. “This form of communication he said had been preferred on account of greater security; it was a proof of the minister’s habitual circumspection, and of nothing else.” To most Frenchmen it might have seemed rather an example of Talleyrand’s supposed taste for jobbery, and the United States government had reason to know what was likely to be the outcome of such overtures; but Armstrong was not unused to intrigue, and did not affect virtue above the comprehension of the society in which he lived. A fortnight afterward the Emperor left Paris for his campaign in Germany. While Armstrong’s despatch was still on its way to Washington, Napoleon captured Ulm, and November 13 entered Vienna. On the same day the despatch reached the United States. Jefferson’s Cabinet council of November 12 had barely come to its long-disputed conclusion, and decided to reopen the Florida negotiation as a French bargain, when Talleyrand’s memorandum arrived, fixing definitely his terms. Naturally, the President supposed that Florida might thenceforward be looked upon as his own. At the next Cabinet he laid Armstrong’s letter before the four secretaries; and the result of their deliberation was recorded in his own hand:[91]--