The committee separated, not to meet again for a fortnight; but during the following week Randolph had several interviews with the President and Secretary of State. Madison told him “that France would not permit Spain to adjust her differences with us; that France wanted money, and that we must give it to her, or have a Spanish and French war.”[110] If Madison said this he told the truth. Randolph made an unfair use of the confidential words; for he proclaimed them as his excuse for declaring a public and personal war on the Secretary of State, which he waged thenceforward in a temper and by means so revolting as in the end to throw the sympathies of every unprejudiced man on the side of his victim. “From the moment I heard that declaration,” said Randolph afterward, “all the objections I originally had to the procedure were aggravated to the highest possible degree. I considered it a base prostration of the national character to excite one nation by money to bully another nation out of its property; and from that moment, and to the last moment of my life, my confidence in the principles of the man entertaining those sentiments died, never to live again.” These words would have carried more conviction had Randolph’s quarrel with Madison not been of much older date. In truth he wanted a means to break down the secretary’s chance of election as President, and he thought to find it here. As he said openly in Congress and in the press, “his confidence in the Secretary of State had never been very high, but now it was gone forever.”[111] The serious charge against Madison was one which Madison alone could reveal. Down to October 23 he had held Randolph’s view and had protested against turning the Spanish negotiation into a French job. He could hardly blame Randolph for adhering to an opinion which had been held by President and Cabinet until within a few weeks, when they had abandoned it without explanation or excuse. Stubbornly refusing to act, Randolph, December 14, mounted his horse and rode to Baltimore, leaving the President for the moment helpless. Every hour’s delay shook party discipline, and imperilled Armstrong’s success. The President appealed to Nicholson; but Nicholson also disliked the intended policy, and could be persuaded to use his influence only so far as would enable the committee to act, with the understanding that its action would be adverse to the President’s wishes. Although the situation was still secret, it threatened to become scandalous, and soon became so altogether.