About this time reports began to be circulated that the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria would be invited by a large body of Mexicans to place himself on the throne of Mexico, and that the Mexican people would gladly hail such a change. To whatever extent such reports might be credited, the United States could not call into question the good faith of the parties to the London convention. The British government, as the issue showed, acted with perfect sincerity in the matter; and the Spanish government, whatever may have been its original intentions, followed the lead of Great Britain. When the reports in regard to Maximilian were first circulated, the British government declared to its agent, Sir Charles Wyke, that: If the Mexican people, by a spontaneous movement, place the Austrian Archduke on the throne of Mexico, there is nothing in the convention to prevent it. On the other hand, we could be no parties to a forcible intervention for this purpose. The Mexicans must consult their own interests.[209] At the time, however, the attitude of the British government was not at all understood. Mr. Adams wrote: Great Britain occupies the post of holding the door, whilst her two associates, with her knowledge, go in, fully prepared, if they can, to perpetrate the act which she, at the outset, made them denounce, at the same time that she disavowed every idea of being made to participate in it.[210] In the face of armed invasion, the Mexican government assumed a more reasonable attitude, and on the 19th day of February, 1862, the plenipotentiaries of Spain, Great Britain, and France signed, at Soledad, with the secretary of state of the Mexican government a preliminary agreement or convention, in which they recognized the constitutional government as then organized. Declaring that they had "no designs against the independence, sovereignty and integrity of the Mexican republic," they agreed to open negotiations for the settlement of all the demands which they had to make at Orizaba. During the negotiations the forces of the allies were to be allowed to leave the unhealthy locality of Vera Cruz and occupy the three towns of Cordova, Orizaba, and Tehuacan, with their natural approaches. In the event of negotiations being broken off, the allies agreed to abandon the towns above named before reopening hostilities.[211]