It was a highly unorthodox arrangement, to say the least, to have the attorney for the corporation most directly in line to benefit from the treaty, a man with no official title, no rightful business to be involved in any official capacity, operating at will at the highest diplomatic level, instrumental to a degree exceeded only by the Secretary and the President, and with full impunity. But such was this exceptional man’s influence over Hay and such it had been since the negotiations began. When Hay had at last put his large, legible signature to the treaty in January, it was to Cromwell that
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