Marquis de Casa Yrujo-he was a Marquis nowassured Mr. Madison that the Intendant had acted without orders, and as soon as he found out, the Prince Godoy ordered the river opened; but Congress, led by John Randolph, had asked for the "papers" in the case. "This circumstance," Mr. Pichon, the French Minister, notified his government in December, "will be decisive for Mr. Jefferson. If he acts feebly, he is lost among his partisans; it will be then the time for Mr. Burr to show himself with advantage." Mr. Jefferson sent some papers, and the House determined to rely "with perfect confidence on the vigilance and wisdom of the Executive."

The time had come, Mr. Jefferson told Mr. Monroe, when "something sensible, therefore, has become necessary," and prepared to send him to France. As for the free navigation of the Mississippi, if the United States, Mr. Jefferson declaimed to the British Minister, were "obliged at last to resort to force, they would throw away the scabbard." Just like that.

3

And so, in March, 1803, Mr. Monroe went to France, with instructions authorizing him and Mr. Livingston to negotiate with Napoleon for the purchase of New Orleans and West Florida-still that misapprehension concerning the status of the Floridas. They could pay two million dollars. "Peace is our passion," Mr. Jefferson explained, "and wrong might drive us from it. We prefer trying every other just principle, right and safety before we would

recur to war." He was extraordinarily like Mr. Woodrow Wilson in that respect, and some others.

Mr. Monroe arrived at Paris on April 12, and before they knew it, he and Mr. Livingston were haggling with Mr. de Talleyrand and Minister Marbois of the Treasury-not for New Orleans, but for the whole of Louisiana. The First Consul had suddenly made up his mind to sell the Province -in spite of Mr. de Talleyrand who saw his colonial empire vanishing, and in spite of Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte who came to expostulate with their brother while he was in his bath, and got themselves splashed for their pains. The First Consul had decided to sell, for one reason-and they were many and intricate-in order to annoy the Prince Godoy. Everyone was in a great state over the affair, but finally, on May 2, 1803, it was settled. America would pay sixty million francs for Louisiana, and twenty million more representing the American damage claims against France-fifteen million dollars in all.

And, as Mr. Henry Adams points out, the sale was invalid; since, if the territory belonged to France, the consent of the Chambers was necessary, and, in any case, the Spanish treaty forbade the “alienation" by France of Louisiana under any circumstances. Indeed, at Madrid, the news was received with consternation. The Prince Godoy was in

At home, in America, people were no less astonished. Mr. Jefferson had offered a bid of two mil

lion dollars for New Orleans and West Florida; he found himself faced with the whole of Louisiana and a bill for fifteen million.

Fifteen million dollars, the Federalists criedwhy, fifteen million dollars stacked up dollar on dollar would make a pile three miles high; there were not that many dollars in the country; it would take eight hundred and sixty-six waggons-fifteen million dollars! And as for Louisiana, what was it, this territory? A place full of wild animals, and gigantic Indians, and bear trappers; an enormous wilderness of no use whatever. Not at all, the Republicans replied. There were tremendous prairies covered with buffalo, and mountains of salt. Mr. Jefferson himself said so. "One extraordinary fact relative to salt must not be omitted," he reported to Congress. "There exists about one thousand miles up the Missouri. . . a salt mountain! The existence of such a mountain might well be questioned, were it not for the testimony of several respectable and enterprising traders. who have exhibited several bushels of the salt to the curiosity of the people of St. Louis. This mountain is said to be 180 miles long and 45 in width, composed of solid rock salt, without any trees or even shrubs on it."

Mountains of salt! Lakes of whisky, too, and valleys of hasty pudding, the Federalists laughed, and began to sing

"Jefferson lately of Bonaparte bought,

To pickle his fame, a mountain of salt!"

But aside from all that, the purchase was unconstitutional. The Constitution did not permit the

Executive to acquire territory, and the treaty making power did not include the right to take new States into the Union. There was a great fuss over it, and for a while Mr. Jefferson wanted to submit a Constitutional amendment; but they got around it, finally, by having the Senate ratify the proceedings without any regard for the provisions of the Constitution, and Mr. Jefferson was even authorized to appoint officers without any reference to the Senate. From beginning to end, in France and in America, the entire transaction was illegal. But the country, on the whole, was pleased, and the Southwest was delighted.

In the meantime, Mr. Laussat, the French Prefect, had arrived at New Orleans, followed, later, by the Marquis de Casa Calvo from Havana. On November 30, 1803-while from the balcony of the Cabildo the Marquis proclaimed the sovereignty of Spain at an end-Mr. Laussat received from Governor Manuel de Salcedo the keys of the town. For twenty days the Creole city rejoiced in the restoration of its old nationality; and then, on December 20, Mr. Laussat transferred his keys to Governor Claiborne and General Wilkinson, while people wept in the Place d'Armes at the final passing of the banner of France. Slowly, at the masthead, the American flag unfurled.

5

Louisiana was American, but what about West Florida? If Mr. Jefferson experienced any passion comparable to his passion for peace, it was that which he entertained-and the country with him-for the

possession of West Florida. But West Florida was not included in the sale of Louisiana by France to America, since it had not been included in the original cession by Spain to France. Mr. Livingston, in Paris, had tried to make out otherwise, basing his arguments on ingenious assumptions-and anyway, he wrote to Mr. Madison, "the moment is so favorable for taking possession of that country that I hope it has not been neglected, even though a little force should be necessary to effect it."

But it had been neglected, just as the securing of a definition of the actual eastern boundaries of Louisiana, as understood by France, had been neglected by Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monroe. But still Mr. Jefferson insisted on having West Florida; in fact, he calmly claimed West Florida, and gave his signature to John Randolph's Mobile Act, in February, 1804, in which the House proclaimed that "all the navigable waters, rivers, creeks, bays and inlets lying within the United States, which empty into the Gulf of Mexico east of the river Mississippi, shall be annexed to the Mississippi District." And this could only mean that West Florida was a part of the United States, since otherwise they did not own any navigable waters, rivers, creeks, bays and inlets lying within their borders and emptying into the Gulf of Mexico east of the river Mississippi.

It is not necessary in these pages to discuss the long months of intricate and fruitless negotiations which followed; the quarrels with the Marquis Yrujo, who kept pointing out to Mr. Madison that, far from acquiring West Florida, the United States had