exceedingly convenient for Mexico to maintain this pacific state of _quasi-war_ and to reject, alike, our amity and hostilities, as long as she owed us many millions of dollars and refused either to pay principal or interest, or to conclude a treaty for the settlement of unadjusted claims. Whilst her government was able to enforce non-intercourse, it was free from importunity and payment. But this adroit scheme of insolvency was unjust to our citizens, and only served to augment the liabilities of Mexico. What then remained to be done? The reply may be found in a significant anecdote related by Mr. Adams in a speech in congress on the Oregon question, on the 2d of January, 1846. "After negotiating"--said he--"for twenty years about this matter we may take possession of the subject matter of negotiation. Indeed, we may negotiate after we take possession, and this is the military way of doing business. When Frederick the Great came to the throne of Prussia he found that his father had equipped for him an army of a hundred thousand men. Meeting soon after the Austrian minister, the latter said to him: "Your father has given you a great army, but ours has seen the wolf, whilst your majesty's has not." "Well--well!" exclaimed Frederick, "I will soon give it an opportunity to see the wolf!" Frederick then added, in his memoirs:--"I had some excellent old _pretensions_ to an Austrian province, which some of my ancestors owned one or two centuries before; accordingly I sent an ambassador to the court of Austria stating my claim, and presenting a full exposition of my right to the province. The same day my ambassador was received in Vienna, I entered Silesia with my army!"[94]