When Marbois took the treaty to the First Consul, Bonaparte listened
to its provisions with lively interest; and on hearing that twenty
millions were to be employed in paying claims,--a use of money which
he much disliked,--he broke out: “Who authorized you to dispose of the
money of the State? I want to have these twenty millions paid into
the Treasury. The claimants’ rights cannot come before our own.”[48]
His own _projet_ had required the Americans to assume these
claims,--which was, in fact, the better plan. Marbois’s alteration
turned the claims into a French job. Perhaps Bonaparte was not averse
to this; for when Marbois reminded him that he had himself fixed the
price at fifty millions, whereas the treaty gave him sixty, and settled
the claims besides,--“It is true,” he said; “the negotiation leaves me
nothing to wish. Sixty millions for an occupation that will not perhaps
last a day! I want France to have the good of this unexpected capital,
and to employ it in works of use to her marine.” On the spot he
dictated a decree for the construction of five canals. This excellent
use of the money seemed inconsistent with Lucien’s remark that it was
wanted for war,--but the canals were never built or begun; and the
sixty millions were spent, to the last centime, in preparations for an
impracticable descent on England.
Yet money was not the inducement which caused Bonaparte to sell
Louisiana to the United States. The Prince of Peace would at any
time have given more money, and would perhaps have been willing, as
he certainly was able, to pay it from his private means rather than
allow the United States to own Louisiana. In other respects, the
sale needed explanation, since it contradicted the First Consul’s
political theories and prejudices. He had but two rooted hatreds. The
deeper and fiercer of these was directed against the republic,--the
organized democracy, and what he called ideology, which Americans knew
in practice as Jeffersonian theories; the second and steadier was his
hatred of England as the chief barrier to his military omnipotence.
The cession of Louisiana to the United States contradicted both
these passions, making the ideologists supreme in the New World, and
necessarily tending in the end to strengthen England in the Old.
Bonaparte had been taught by Talleyrand that America and England,
whatever might be their mutual jealousies, hatreds, or wars, were
socially and economically one and indivisible. Barely ten years after
the Revolutionary War had closed, and at a time when the wounds it made
were still raw, Talleyrand remarked: “In every part of America through
which I have travelled, I have not found a single Englishman who did
not feel himself to be an American; not a single Frenchman who did not
find himself a stranger.” Bonaparte knew that England held the monopoly
of American trade, and that America held the monopoly of democratic
principles; yet he did an act which was certain to extend British trade
and fortify democratic principles.
This contradiction was due to no change in Bonaparte’s opinions; these
remained what they were. At the moment when talking to Marbois about
“those republicans whose friendship I seek,” he was calculating on the
chance that his gift would one day prove their ruin. “Perhaps it will
also be objected to me,” he said,[49] “that the Americans may in two
or three centuries be found too powerful for Europe; but my foresight
does not embrace such remote fears. Besides, we may hereafter expect
rivalries among the members of the Union. The confederations that are
called perpetual last only till one of the contracting parties finds
it to its interest to break them.... It is to prevent the danger to
which the colossal power of England exposes us that I would provide
a remedy.” The colossal power of England depended on her navy, her
colonies, and her manufactures. Bonaparte proposed to overthrow it
by shattering beyond repair the colonial system of France and Spain;
and even this step was reasonable compared with what followed. He
expected to check the power of England by giving Louisiana to the
United States,--a measure which opened a new world to English commerce
and manufactures, and riveted England’s grasp on the whole American
continent, inviting her to do what she afterward did,--join hands
with the United States in revolutionizing Mexico and South America in
her own interests. As though to render these results certain, after
extending this invitation to English commerce and American democracy,
Bonaparte next invited a war with England, which was certain to drive
from the ocean every ship belonging to France or Spain,--a war which
left even the United States at England’s mercy.
Every detail that could explain Bonaparte’s motives becomes interesting
in a matter so important to American history. Certain points were
clear. Talleyrand’s colonial and peace policy failed. Resting on the
maintenance of order in Europe and the extension of French power
in rivalry with the United States and England in America, it was a
statesmanlike and honorable scheme, which claimed for the Latin races
what Louis XIV. tried to gain for them; but it had the disadvantage
of rousing hostility in the United States, and of throwing them into
the arms of England. For this result Talleyrand was prepared. He knew
that he could keep peace with England, and that the United States alone
could not prevent him from carrying out his policy. Indeed, Madison
in his conversation with Pichon invited such action, and Jefferson
had no means of resisting it; but from the moment when St. Domingo
prevented the success of the scheme, and Bonaparte gained an excuse
for following his own military instincts, the hostility of the United
States became troublesome. President Jefferson had chiefly reckoned on
this possibility as his hope of getting Louisiana; and slight as the
chance seemed, he was right.
This was, in effect, the explanation which Talleyrand officially wrote
to his colleague Decrès, communicating a copy of the treaty, and
requesting him to take the necessary measures for executing it.[50]
“The wish to spare the North American continent the war with
which it was threatened, to dispose of different points in
dispute between France and the United States of America, and to
remove all the new causes of misunderstanding which competition
and neighborhood might have produced between them; the position
of the French colonies; their want of men, cultivation, and
assistance; in fine, the empire of circumstances, foresight of
the future, and the intention to compensate by an advantageous
arrangement for the inevitable loss of a country which war was
going to put at the mercy of another nation,--all these motives
have determined the Government to pass to the United States
the rights it had acquired from Spain over the sovereignty and
property of Louisiana.”
Talleyrand’s words were always happily chosen, whether to reveal or
to conceal his thoughts. This display of reasons for an act which
he probably preferred to condemn, might explain some of the First
Consul’s motives in ceding Louisiana to the United States; but it only
confused another more perplexing question. Louisiana did not belong
to France, but to Spain. The retrocession had never been completed;
the territory was still possessed, garrisoned, and administered by Don
Carlos IV.; until actual delivery was made, Spain might yet require
that the conditions of retrocession should be rigorously performed. Her
right in the present instance was complete, because she held as one of
the conditions precedent to the retrocession a solemn pledge from the
First Consul never to alienate Louisiana. The sale of Louisiana to the
United States was trebly invalid: if it were French property, Bonaparte
could not constitutionally alienate it without the consent of the
Chambers; if it were Spanish property, he could not alienate it at all;
if Spain had a right of reclamation, his sale was worthless. In spite
of all these objections the alienation took place; and the motives
which led the First Consul to conciliate America by violating the
Constitution of France were perhaps as simple as he represented them to
be; but no one explained what motives led Bonaparte to break his word
of honor and betray the monarchy of Spain.
Bonaparte’s evident inclination toward a new war with England greatly
distressed King Charles IV. Treaty stipulations bound Spain either to
take part with France in the war, or to pay a heavy annual subsidy;
and Spain was so weak that either alternative seemed fatal. The Prince
of Peace would have liked to join England or Austria in a coalition
against Bonaparte; but he knew that to this last desperate measure
King Charles would never assent until Bonaparte’s hand was actually
on his crown; for no one could reasonably doubt that within a year
after Spain should declare an unsuccessful war on France, the whole
picturesque Spanish court--not only Don Carlos IV. himself and Queen
Luisa, but also the Prince of Peace, Don Pedro Cevallos, the Infant
Don Ferdinand, and the train of courtiers who thronged La Granja and
the Escorial--would be wandering in exile or wearing out their lives
in captivity. To increase the complication, the young King of Etruria
died May 27, 1803, leaving an infant seated upon the frail throne
which was sure soon to disappear at the bidding of some military order
countersigned by Berthier.
In the midst of such anxieties, Godoy heard a public rumor that
Bonaparte had sold Louisiana to the United States; and he felt it
as the death-knell of the Spanish empire. Between the energy of the
American democracy and the violence of Napoleon whom no oath bound,
Spain could hope for no escape. From New Orleans to Vera Cruz was but
a step; from Bayonne to Cadiz a winter campaign of some five or six
hundred miles. Yet Godoy would probably have risked everything, and
would have thrown Spain into England’s hands, had he been able to
control the King and Queen, over whom Bonaparte exercised the influence
of a master. On learning the sale of Louisiana, the Spanish government
used language almost equivalent to a rupture with France. The Spanish
minister at Paris was ordered to remonstrate in the strongest terms
against the step which the First Consul had taken behind the back of
the King his ally.[51]
“This alienation,” wrote the Chevalier d’Azara to Talleyrand,
“not only deranges from top to bottom the whole colonial system
of Spain, and even of Europe, but is directly opposed to the
compacts and formal stipulations agreed upon between France and
Spain, and to the terms of the cession in the treaty of Tuscany;
and the King my master brought himself to give up the colony
only on condition that it should at no time, under no pretext,
and in no manner, be alienated or ceded to any other Power.”
Then, after reciting the words of Gouvion St.-Cyr’s pledge, the note
continued:--
“It is impossible to conceive more frankness or loyalty than
the King has put into his conduct toward France throughout this
affair. His Majesty had therefore the right to expect as much on
the part of his ally, but unhappily finds himself deceived in
his hopes by the sale of the said colony. Yet trusting always in
the straightforwardness and justice of the First Consul, he has
ordered me to make this representation, and to protest against
the alienation, hoping that it will be revoked, as manifestly
contrary to the treaties and to the most solemn anterior
promises.”
Not stopping there, the note also insisted that Tuscany should be
evacuated by the French troops, who were not needed, and had become
an intolerable burden, so that the country was reduced to the utmost
misery. Next, King Charles demanded that Parma and Piacenza should be
surrendered to the King of Etruria, to whom they belonged as the heir
of the late Duke of Parma. Finally, the note closed with a complaint
even more grave in substance than any of the rest:--
“The King my master could have wished also a little more
friendly frankness in communicating the negotiations with
England, and especially in regard to the dispositions of the
Northern courts, guarantors of the treaty of Amiens; but as this
affair belongs to negotiations of another kind, the undersigned
abstains for the moment from entering into them, reserving the
right to do so on a better occasion.”
Beurnonville, the French minister at Madrid, tried to soothe or
silence the complaints of Cevallos; but found himself only silenced in
return. The views of the Spanish secretary were energetic, precise,
and not to be met by argument.[52] “I have not been able to bring M.
Cevallos to any moderate, conciliatory, or even calm expression,”
wrote Beurnonville to Talleyrand; “he has persistently shown himself
inaccessible to all persuasion.” The Prince of Peace was no more
manageable than Cevallos: “While substituting a soft and pliant tone
for the sharpest expressions, and presenting under the appearance of
regret what had been advanced to me with the bitterness of reproach,
the difference between the Prince’s conduct and that of M. Cevallos is
one only in words.” Both of them said, what was quite true, that the
United States would not have objected to the continued possession of
Louisiana by Spain, and that France had greatly exaggerated the dispute
about the _entrepôt_.
“The whole matter reduces itself to a blunder (_gaucherie_)
of the Intendant,” said Cevallos; “it has been finally explained
to Mr. Jefferson, and friendship is restored. On both sides
there has been irritation, but not a shadow of aggression; and
from the moment of coming to an understanding, both parties see
that they are at bottom of one mind, and mutually very well
disposed toward each other. Moreover, it is quite gratuitous
to assume that Louisiana is so easy to take in the event of a
war, either by the Americans or by the English. The first have
only militia,--very considerable, it is true, but few troops
of the line; while Louisiana, at least for the moment, has ten
thousand militia-men, and a body of three thousand five hundred
regular troops. As for the English, they cannot seriously have
views on a province which is impregnable to them; and all things
considered, it would be no great calamity if they should take
it. The United States, having a much firmer hold on the American
continent, should they take a new enlargement, would end by
becoming formidable, and would one day disturb the Spanish
possessions. As for the debts due to Americans, Spain has still
more claim to an arrangement of that kind; and in any case the
King, as Bonaparte must know, would have gladly discharged
all the debts contracted by France, and perhaps even a large
instalment of the American claim, in order to recover an old
domain of the crown. Finally, the intention which led the King
to give his consent to the exchange of Louisiana was completely
deceived. This intention had been to interpose a strong dyke
between the Spanish colonies and the American possessions; now,
on the contrary, the doors of Mexico are to stay open to them.”
To these allegations, which Beurnonville called “insincere, weak,
and ill-timed,” Cevallos added a piece of evidence which, strangely
enough, was altogether new to the French minister, and reduced him to
confusion: it was Gouvion St.-Cyr’s letter, pledging the First Consul
never to alienate Louisiana.
When Beurnonville’s despatch narrating these interviews reached Paris,
it stung Bonaparte to the quick, and called from him one of the angry
avowals with which he sometimes revealed a part of the motives that
influenced his strange mind. Talleyrand wrote back to Beurnonville,
June 22, a letter which bore the mark of the First Consul’s hand.
“In one of my last letters,” he began,[53] “I made known to
you the motives which determined the Government to give up
Louisiana to the United States. You will not conceal from the
Court of Madrid that one of the causes which had most influence
on this determination was discontent at learning that Spain,
after having promised to sustain the measures taken by the
Intendant of New Orleans, had nevertheless formally revoked
them. These measures would have tended to free the capital
of Louisiana from subjection to a right of deposit which was
becoming a source of bickerings between the Louisianians and
Americans. We should have afterward assigned to the United
States, in conformity to their treaty with Spain, another place
of deposit, less troublesome to the colony and less injurious
to its commerce; but Spain put to flight all these hopes by
confirming the privileges of the Americans at New Orleans,--thus
granting them definitively local advantages which had been at
first only temporary. The French government, which had reason to
count on the contrary assurance given in this regard by that of
Spain, had a right to feel surprise at this determination; and
seeing no way of reconciling it with the commercial advantages
of the colony and with a long peace between the colony and its
neighbors, took the only course which actual circumstances and
wise prevision could suggest.”
These assertions contained no more truth than those which Cevallos had
answered. Spain had not promised to sustain the Intendant, nor had
she revoked the Intendant’s measures after, but before, the imagined
promise; she had not confirmed the American privileges at New Orleans,
but had expressly reserved them for future treatment. On the other
hand, the restoration of the deposit was not only reconcilable with
peace between Louisiana and the United States, but the whole world
knew that the risk of war rose from the threat of disturbing the right
of deposit. The idea that the colony had become less valuable on this
account was new. France had begged for the colony with its American
privileges, and meaning to risk the chances of American hostility;
but if these privileges were the cause of selling the colony to the
Americans, and if, as Talleyrand implied, France could and would
have held Louisiana if the right of deposit at New Orleans had been
abolished and the Americans restricted to some other spot on the
river-bank, fear of England was not, as had been previously alleged,
the cause of the sale. Finally, if the act of Spain made the colony
worthless, why was Spain deprived of the chance to buy it back?
The answer was evident. The reason why Bonaparte did not keep his word
to Don Carlos IV. was that he looked on Spain as his own property, and
on himself as representing her sovereignty. The reasons for which he
refused to Spain the chance to redeem the colony, were probably far
more complicated. The only obvious explanation, assuming that he still
remembered his pledge, was a wish to punish Spain.
After all these questions were asked, one problem still remained.
Bonaparte had reasons for not returning the colony to Spain; he had
reasons, too, for giving it to the United States,--but why did he
alienate the territory from France? Fear of England was not the true
cause. He had not to learn how to reconquer Louisiana on the Danube and
the Po. At one time or another Great Britain had captured nearly all
the French colonies in the New World, and had been forced not only
to disgorge conquests, but to abandon possessions; until of the three
great European Powers in America, England was weakest. Any attempt to
regain old ascendency by conquering Louisiana would have thrown the
United States into the hands of France; and had Bonaparte anticipated
such an act, he should have helped it. That Great Britain should waste
strength in conquering Louisiana in order to give it to the United
States, was an idea not to be gravely argued. Jefferson might, indeed,
be driven into an English alliance in order to take Louisiana by force
from France or Spain; but this danger was slight in itself, and might
have been removed by the simple measure of selling only the island of
New Orleans, and by retaining the west bank, which Jefferson was ready
to guarantee. This was the American plan; and the President offered for
New Orleans alone about half the price he paid for all Louisiana.[54]
Still, Bonaparte forced the west bank on Livingston. Every diplomatic
object would have been gained by accepting Jefferson’s _projet_ of
a treaty, and signing it without the change of a word. Spain would have
been still in some degree protected; England would have been tempted to
commit the mistake of conquering the retained territory, and thereby
the United States would have been held in check; the United States
would have gained all the stimulus their ambition could require for
many years to come; and what was more important to Bonaparte, France
could not justly say that he had illegally and ignobly sold national
territory except for a sufficient and national object.
The real reasons which induced Bonaparte to alienate the territory
from France remained hidden in the mysterious processes of his mind.
Perhaps he could not himself have given the true explanation of his
act. Anger with Spain and Godoy had a share in it, as he avowed through
Talleyrand’s letter of June 22; disgust for the sacrifices he had made,
and impatience to begin his new campaigns on the Rhine,--possibly a
wish to show Talleyrand that his policy could never be revived, and
that he had no choice but to follow into Germany,--had still more to do
with the act. Yet it is also reasonable to believe that the depths of
his nature concealed a wish to hide forever the monument of a defeat.
As he would have liked to blot Corsica, Egypt, and St. Domingo from the
map, and wipe from human memory the record of his failures, he may have
taken pleasure in flinging Louisiana far off, and burying it forever
from the sight of France in the bosom of the only government which
could absorb and conceal it.
For reasons of his own, which belonged rather to military and European
than to American history, Bonaparte preferred to deal with Germany
before crossing the Pyrenees; and he knew that meanwhile Spain could
not escape. Godoy on his side could neither drag King Charles into a
war with France, nor could he provide the means of carrying on such
a war with success. Where strong nations like Austria, Russia, and
Prussia were forced to crouch before Bonaparte, and even England would
have been glad to accept tolerable terms, Spain could not challenge
attack. The violent anger that followed the sale of Louisiana and the
rupture of the peace of Amiens soon subsided. Bonaparte, aware that he
had outraged the rights of Spain, became moderate. Anxious to prevent
her from committing any act of desperation, he did not require her
to take part in the war, but even allowed her stipulated subsidies
to run in arrears; and although he might not perhaps regret his sale
of Louisiana to the United States, he felt that he had gone too far
in shaking the colonial system. At the moment when Cevallos made his
bitterest complaints, Bonaparte was least disposed to resent them by
war. Both parties knew that so far as Louisiana was concerned, the act
was done and could not be undone; that France was bound to carry out
her pledge, or the United States would take possession of Louisiana
without her aid. Bonaparte was willing to go far in the way of
conciliation, if Spain would consent to withdraw her protest.
Of this the American negotiators knew little. Through such
complications, of which Bonaparte alone understood the secret, the
Americans moved more or less blindly, not knowing enemies from friends.
The only public man who seemed ever to understand Napoleon’s methods
was Pozzo di Borgo, whose ways of thought belonged to the island
society in which both had grown to manhood; and Monroe was not skilled
in the diplomacy of Pozzo, or even of Godoy. Throughout life, Monroe
was greatly under the influence of other men. He came to Paris almost a
stranger to its new society, for his only relations of friendship had
been with the republicans, most of whom Bonaparte had sent to Cayenne.
He found Livingston master of the situation, and wisely interfered in
no way with what Livingston did. The treaty was no sooner signed than
he showed his readiness to follow Livingston further, without regard to
embarrassments which might result.
When Livingston set his name to the treaty of cession, May 2, 1803,
he was aware of the immense importance of the act. He rose and shook
hands with Monroe and Marbois. “We have lived long,” said he; “but
this is the noblest work of our lives.” This was said by the man
who in the Continental Congress had been a member of the committee
appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence; and it was said to
Monroe, who had been assured only three months before, by President
Jefferson of the grandeur of his destinies in words he could hardly
have forgotten:[55] “Some men are born for the public. Nature, by
fitting them for the service of the human race on a broad scale, has
stamped them with the evidences of her destination and their duty.”
Monroe was born for the public, and knew what destiny lay before him;
while in Livingston’s mind New York had thenceforward a candidate for
the Presidency whose claims were better than Monroe’s. In the cup of
triumph of which these two men then drank deep, was yet one drop of
acid. They had been sent to buy the Floridas and New Orleans. They
had bought New Orleans; but instead of Florida, so much wanted by the
Southern people, they had paid ten or twelve million dollars for the
west bank of the Mississippi. The negotiators were annoyed to think
that having been sent to buy the east bank of the Mississippi, they
had bought the west bank instead; that the Floridas were not a part
of their purchase. Livingston especially felt the disappointment, and
looked about him for some way to retrieve it.
Hardly was the treaty signed, when Livingston found what he sought.
He discovered that France had actually bought West Florida without
knowing it, and had sold it to the United States without being paid
for it. This theory, which seemed at first sight preposterous, became
a fixed idea in Livingston’s mind. He knew that West Florida had not
been included by Spain in the retrocession, but that on the contrary
Charles IV. had repeatedly, obstinately, and almost publicly rejected
Bonaparte’s tempting bids for that province. Livingston’s own argument
for the cession of Louisiana had chiefly rested on this knowledge,
and on the theory that without Mobile New Orleans was worthless.
He recounted this to Madison in the same letter which announced
Talleyrand’s offer to sell:[56]--
“I have used every exertion with the Spanish Ambassador and
Lord Whitworth to prevent the transfer of the Floridas, ... and
unless they [the French] get Florida, I have convinced them that
Louisiana is worth little.”
In the preceding year one of the French ministers had applied to
Livingston “to know what we understand in America by Louisiana;”
and Livingston’s answer was on record in the State Department at
Washington:[57] “Since the possession of the Floridas by Britain and
the treaty of 1762, I think there can be no doubt as to the precise
meaning of the terms.” He had himself drafted an article which he
tried to insert in Marbois’s _projet_, pledging the First Consul
to interpose his good offices with the King of Spain to obtain the
country east of the Mississippi. As late as May 12, Livingston wrote to
Madison:[58] “I am satisfied that ... if they [the French] could have
concluded with Spain, we should also have had West Florida.” In his
next letter, only a week afterward, he insisted that West Florida was
his:[59]--
“Now, sir, the sum of this business is to recommend to you in
the strongest terms, after having obtained the possession that
the French commissary will give you, to insist upon this as a
part of your right, and to take possession at all events to the
River Perdido. I pledge myself that your right is good.”
The reasoning on which he rested this change of opinion was in
substance the following: France had, in early days, owned nearly all
the North American continent, and her province of Louisiana had then
included Ohio and the watercourses between the Lakes and the Gulf, as
well as West Florida, or a part of it. This possession lasted until
the treaty of peace, Nov. 3, 1762, when France ceded to England not
only Canada, but also Florida and all other possessions east of the
Mississippi, except the Island of New Orleans. Then West Florida by
treaty first received its modern boundary at the Iberville. On the
same day France further ceded to Spain the Island of New Orleans and
all Louisiana west of the Mississippi. Not a foot of the vast French
possessions on the continent of North America remained in the hands of
the King of France; they were divided between England and Spain.
The retrocession of 1800 was made on the understanding that it referred
to this cession of 1762. The province of Louisiana which had been ceded
was _retro_-ceded, with its treaty-boundary at the Iberville.
Livingston knew that the understanding between France and Spain was
complete; yet on examination he found that it had not been expressed
in words so clearly but that these words could be made to bear a
different meaning. Louisiana was retroceded, he perceived, “with the
same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when
France possessed it, and such as it should be according to the treaties
subsequently entered into between Spain and other States.” When France
possessed Louisiana it included Ohio and West Florida: no one could
deny that West Florida was in the hands of Spain; therefore Bonaparte,
in the absence of negative proof, might have claimed West Florida, if
he had been acute enough to know his own rights, or willing to offend
Spain,--and as all Bonaparte’s rights were vested in the United States,
President Jefferson was at liberty to avail himself of them.
The ingenuity of Livingston’s idea was not to be disputed; and as a
ground for a war of conquest it was as good as some of the claims which
Bonaparte made the world respect. As a diplomatic weapon, backed as
Napoleon would have backed it by a hundred thousand soldiers, it was as
effective an instrument as though it had every attribute of morality
and good faith; and all it wanted, as against Spain, was the approval
of Bonaparte. Livingston hoped that after the proof of friendship which
Bonaparte had already given in selling Louisiana to the United States,
he might without insuperable difficulty be induced to grant this favor.
Both Marbois and Talleyrand, under the First Consul’s express orders,
led him on. Marbois did not deny that Mobile might lie in Louisiana,
and Talleyrand positively denied knowledge that Laussat’s instructions
contained a definition of boundaries. Bonaparte stood behind both
these agents, telling them that if an obscurity did not exist about the
boundary they should make one. Talleyrand went so far as to encourage
the pretensions which Livingston hinted: “You have made a noble bargain
for yourselves,” said he, “and I suppose you will make the most of it.”
This was said at the time when Bonaparte was still intent on punishing
Spain.
Livingston found no difficulty in convincing Monroe that they had
bought Florida as well as Louisiana.[60]
“We consider ourselves so strongly founded in this conclusion,
that we are of opinion the United States should act on it in all
the measures relative to Louisiana in the same manner as if West
Florida was comprised within the Island of New Orleans, or lay
to the west of the River Iberville.”
Livingston expected that “a little force,”[61] as he expressed himself,
might be necessary.
“After the explanations that have been given here, you need
apprehend nothing from a decisive measure; your minister here
and at Madrid can support your claim, and the time is peculiarly
favorable to enable you to do it without the smallest risk at
home.... 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. Your minister
must find the means to justify it.”
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 “practised with
unlimited success upon the Livingston maxim,--
‘Rem facias, rem
Si possis recte; si non, quocunque modo, REM.’”