"Yah," said Germany.

But England said that her Parliament had rejected the Declaration in times of peace and that she could now hardly be expected to adopt it in the face of this Parliamentary rejection.

But, to please us, she agreed to adopt it with only two changes.
Then Lansing to the bat: "No, no," says Lansing, "you've got to adopt it all." Four times he's made me ask for its adoption, the last time coupled with a proposition that if England would adopt it, she might issue a subsequent proclamation saying that, since the Declaration is contradictory, she will construe it her own way, and the United States will raise no objection! Then he sends eighteen pages of fine-spun legal arguments (not all sound by any means) against the sections of the English proclamations that have been put forth, giving them a strained and unfriendly interpretation.
In a word, England has acted in a friendly way to us and will so act, if we allow her.

But Lansing, instead of trusting to her good faith and reserving all our rights under international law and usage, imagines that he can force her to agree to a code that the Germans now agree to because, in Germany's present predicament, it will be especially advantageous to Germany.

Instead of trusting her, he assumes that she means to do wrong and proceeds to try to bind her in advance.