Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/90

A little violence added to a little diplomacy would answer the purpose. To use the words which "Aristides" Van Ness was soon to utter with striking effect, the United States ministers to France "practiced with unlimited success upon the Livingston maxim,—

                                                        'Rem facias, rem
          Si possis recte; si non, quocunque modo, rem.'"