History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson/First/II:1


VOLUME II edit

Chapter 1: Rupture of the Peace of Amiens edit

Congress expired; Monroe set sail March 8, 1803; Washington relapsed into silence; and the President and his Cabinet waited alone in the empty village, triumphing for the moment over their difficulties. Although a French prefect was actually in New Orleans, and the delivery of Louisiana to Bonaparte might from day to day be expected, not an additional soldier stood on the banks of the Mississippi, and the States of Kentucky and Tennessee were as quiet as though their flat-boats still floated down to New Orleans. A month passed before Madison or Jefferson again moved. Then the President asked his Cabinet[1] what Monroe should do in case France, as he expressed it, "refused our rights." He proposed an alliance with England, and suggested three inducements which might be offered to Great Britain: "1. Not to make a separate peace. 2. To let her take Louisiana. 3. Commercial privileges." The Cabinet unanimously rejected the second and third concessions, but Dearborn and Lincoln were alone in opposing the first; and a majority agreed to instruct Monroe and Livingston, "as soon as they find that no arrangements can be made with France, to use all possible procrastination with them, and in the mean time enter into conferences with the British government, through their ambassador at Paris, to fix principles of alliance, and leave us in peace till Congress meets; and prevent war till next spring."

Madison wrote the instructions. If the French government, he said,[2] should meditate hostilities against the United States, or force a war by closing the Mississippi, the two envoys were to invite England to an alliance, and were to negotiate a treaty stipulating that neither party should make peace or truce without consent of the other. Should France deny the right of deposit without disputing the navigation, the envoys were to make no positive engagement, but should let Congress decide between immediate war or further procrastination.

At no time in Talleyrand's negotiations had the idea of war against the United States been suggested. Of his intentions in this respect alone he had given positive assurances.[3] Above all things both he and the First Consul feared a war with the United States. They had nothing to gain by it. Madison's instructions therefore rested on an idea which had no foundation, and which in face of the latest news from Europe was not worth considering; yet even if intended only for use at home, the instructions were startling enough to warrant Virginians in doubting their authenticity. The late Administration, British in feeling as it was supposed to be, had never thought an alliance with England necessary even during actual hostilities with France, and had not hesitated to risk the chances of independent action. Had either of Jefferson's predecessors instructed American ministers abroad, in case of war with France, to bind the United States to make no peace without England's consent, the consequence would have been an impeachment of the President, or direct steps by Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina, as in 1798, tending to a dissolution of the Union. Such an alliance, offensive and defensive, with England contradicted every principle established by President Washington in power or professed by Jefferson in opposition. If it was not finesse, it was an act such as the Republicans of 1798 would have charged as a crime.

While Madison was writing these instructions, he was interrupted by the Marquis of Casa Yrujo,[4] who came in triumph to say that his Government had sent out a brigantine especially to tell the President that the right of deposit would be restored and continued till another agreement or equivalent place could be fixed upon.[5] Yrujo was instructed to thank the President for his friendly, prudent, and moderate conduct during the excitement. He sent to New Orleans the positive order of King Charles IV. To the Intendant Morales, that the right of deposit should be immediately restored; the western people were told that their produce might go down the river as before, and thus the last vestige of anxiety was removed. In face of this action by Godoy, and of the war evidently at hand between France and England, the success of the peace policy was assured. These events in some degree explained the extraordinary nature of the new instructions of April, 1803.

Monroe was then already at Paris. In order to make clear the situation in which he found himself, the sequence of events in Europe needs to be understood.

Bonaparte's expedition to Louisiana was to have sailed at the end of September, 1802.[6] A general of division, three generals of brigade, five battalions of infantry, two companies of artillery, sixteen pieces of cannon, and three thousand muskets were to be collected at Dunkirk for shipment; but as fast as regiments could be named they were consumed by the fiery furnace of St. Domingo. Nevertheless, all the orders and arrangements were gradually made. Victor was to command the forces in Louisiana; Laussat was to be prefect, charged with the civil administration. Both received elaborate written instructions; and although Victor could not sail without ships or troops, Laussat was sent on his way.

These instructions, which were never published, had extreme value for the decision of disputes which were to perturb American politics for the next twenty years. Although Victor was forced to wait in Holland for the expedition he commanded, a copy of his instructions was given to Laussat, and served to regulate his conduct as long as he remained in office. Decrès, the Minister of Marine, was the author of this paper, which unfolded the purpose that had guided France in recovering, and was to control her in administering, this vast possession. Nothing could be simpler, clearer, or more consistent with French policy than this document, which embodied so large a part of Talleyrand's political system.

The instructions began, as was natural, by a careful definition of the new province. After reciting the terms of the retrocession according to the Third Article of Berthier's Treaty, Decrès fixed the boundaries of the territory which Victor, on the part of the French republic, was to receive from the Marquis of Somoruelos, the Captain-General of Cuba.[7]

"The extent of Louisiana," he said, "is well determined on the south by the Gulf of Mexico. But bounded on the west by the river called Rio Bravo from its mouth to about the 30° parallel, the line of demarcation stops after reaching this point, and there seems never to have been any agreement in regard to this part of the frontier. The farther we go northward, the more undecided is the boundary. This part of America contains little more than uninhabited forests or Indian tribes, and the necessity of fixing a boundary has never yet been felt there. There also exists none between Louisiana and Canada."

In this state of things the captain-general would have to relieve the most remote Spanish garrisons, in order to establish possession; in other respects he would be guided only by political and military interests. The western and northern boundary was of less consequence than the little strip which separated New Orleans from Mobile; and to this point the instructions specially called Victor's attention. Quoting the treaty of 1763 between Spain, Great Britain, and France, when Florida was to become a British possession, Decrès fixed its terms as still binding upon all the interested parties.

"'It is agreed,'" said the seventh article of this treaty, "'that in future the boundaries between the States of his Most Christian Majesty and those of his Britannic Majesty shall be irrevocably fixed by a line drawn down the middle of the Mississippi River from its source to the River Iberville, and from there by a line down the middle of that river and of the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea. New Orleans and the island on which it stands shall belong to France.' Such is still to-day the eastern limit of Louisiana. All to the east and north of this limit makes part of the United States or of West Florida."

Nothing could be clearer. Louisiana stretched from the Iberville to the Rio Bravo; West Florida from the Iberville to the Appalachicola. The retrocession of Louisiana by Spain to France could restore only what France had ceded to Spain in 1762. West Florida had nothing to do with the cession of 1762 or the retrocession of 1800, and being Spanish by a wholly different title could not even be brought in question by the First Consul, much as he wanted Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pensacola. Victor's orders were emphatic:—

"There is therefore no obscurity as to our boundary on this side any more than as to that of our allies; and although Florida belongs to Spain, Spain's right of property in this quarter will have as much interest for the Captain-General of Louisiana as though Florida were a French possession."

After thus establishing the boundary, as far as possible, in every direction, the minister treated at some length of the English claim to navigation on the Mississippi, and at last reached the general subject of the relation between Louisiana and the world about it,—the subject in which Jefferson would have found acute interest:—

"The system of this, as of all our other colonies, should be to concentrate its commerce in the national commerce; it should have in particular the aim of establishing its relations with our Antilles, so as to take the place, in these colonies, of the American commerce for all the objects whose import and export is permitted to them. The captain-general should especially abstain from every innovation favorable to strangers, who should be restricted to such communications as are absolutely indispensable to the prosperity of Louisiana and to such as are explicitly determined by the treaties."

Commercial relations with the Spanish colonies were to be encouraged and extended as much as possible, while the utmost caution was to be observed toward the United States:—

"From what has been said of Louisiana and the adjacent States, it is clear that the republic of France, being master of both banks at the mouth of the Mississippi, holds the key to its navigation. This navigation is nevertheless a matter of the highest importance for the western States of the Federal Government. . . . This is enough to show with what jealousy the Federal Government will see us take possession of Louisiana. Whatever may be the events which this new part of the continent has to expect, the arrival of the French forces should be marked there by the expression of sentiments of great benevolence for these new neighbors."

Expression of benevolent sentiments was a pleasing duty; but it was not to interfere with practical measures, both defensive and offensive:—

"The greatest circumspection will be required in directing the colonial administration. A little local experience will soon enable you to discern the sentiments of the western provinces of the Federal Government. It will be well to maintain sources of intelligence in that country, whose numerous, warlike, and sober population may present you a redoubtable enemy. The inhabitants of Kentucky especially should fix the attention of the captain-general. . . . He must also fortify himself against them by alliance with the Indian nations scattered to the east of the river. The Chibackas, Choctaws, Alabamas, Creeks, etc., are represented as being entirely devoted to us. . . . He will not forget that the French government wishes peace; but that if war takes place, Louisiana will certainly become the theatre of hostilities. . . . The intention of the First Consul is to raise Louisiana to a degree of strength which will allow him in time of war to abandon it to its own resources without anxiety; so that enemies may be forced to the greatest sacrifices in attempting to attack it."

In these instructions not a word could be found which clashed with Jefferson's pacific views; and partly for that reason they were more dangerous to the United States than if they had ordered Victor to seize American property on the Mississippi and occupy Natchez with his three thousand men. Victor was instructed, in effect, to tamper with every adventurer from Pittsburg to Natchez; buy up every Indian tribe in the Georgia and Northwestern Territory; fortify every bluff on the western bank from St. Louis to New Orleans; and in a few years create a series of French settlements which would realize Madison's "sound policy" of discouraging the United States from colonizing the west bank.

Fortified by these instructions, the Citizen Laussat set sail Jan. 12, 1803, and in due time arrived at New Orleans. Victor labored in Holland to put his ships and supplies in a condition to follow. As Laussat sailed, another step was taken by the French government. General Bernadotte, a very distinguished republican officer, brother-in-law of Joseph Bonaparte, was appointed minister at Washington.[8] The First Consul had his own reasons for wishing to remove Bernadotte, as he meant to remove Moreau; and Washington was a place of indirect banishment for a kinsman whose character was to be feared. Bernadotte's instructions[9] were signed by Talleyrand Jan. 14, 1803, the day after Monroe was confirmed as special envoy to France by the Senate at Washington, and while Laussat was still on the French coast. Although Bonaparte had been obliged to withdraw a part of Victor's force, he still intended that the expedition should start at once with two thousand men;[10] and its departure was to be so timed that Bernadotte should reach Washington as Victor and his troops reached New Orleans. Their instructions were on one point identical. News of the closure of the Mississippi by Morales had reached Paris, and had already caused an official protest by Livingston, when Talleyrand drew up the instructions to Bernadotte:—

"Louisiana being soon to pass into our hands, with all the rights which have belonged to Spain, we can only with pleasure see that a special circumstance has obliged the Spanish Administration to declare formally [constater] its right to grant or to refuse at will to the Americans the privilege of a commercial entrepôt at New Orleans; the difficulty of maintaining this position will be less for us than that of establishing it. . . . Yet in any discussion that may arise on this subject, and in every discussion you may have to sustain, the First Consul wishes you to be informed of his most positive and pronounced desire to live in good understanding with the American government, to cultivate and to improve for the advantage of American commerce the relations of friendship which unite the two peoples. No one in Europe wishes the prosperity of that people more than he. In accrediting you to its Government he has given it a peculiar mark of his good disposition; he doubts not that you will make every effort to bind closer the ties which exist between the two nations. In consequence of the firm intention which the First Consul has shown on this subject, I must recommend you to take every care to avoid whatever might alter our relations with that nation and its Government. The agents of the French republic in the United States should forbid themselves whatever might even remotely lead to a rupture. In ordinary communication, every step should show the benevolent disposition and mutual friendship which animate the chiefs and all the members of the two Governments; and when any unforeseen difficulty rises which may in any degree whatever compromise their good understanding, the simplest and most effectual means of preventing all danger is to refer its solution to the inquiry and direct judgment of the two Governments."

Talleyrand's language was more elaborate, but not clearer, than that which Bonaparte himself used to Victor.[11]

"I have no need to tell you," the First Consul wrote, "with what impatience the Government will wait for news from you in order to settle its ideas in regard to the pretensions of the United States and their usurpations over the Spaniards. What the Government may think proper to do must not be judged in advance until you have rendered an account of the state of things. Every time you perceive that the United States are raising pretensions, answer that no one has an idea of this at Paris (que l'on n'a aucune idée de cela à Paris); but that you have written, and that you are expecting orders."

These were the ideas held by the government of France at the moment when Jefferson nominated Monroe as a special envoy to buy New Orleans and West Florida. Jefferson's hopes of his success were small; and Livingston, although on the spot and eager to try the experiment, could only write: [12] "Do not absolutely despair." Whatever chance existed of obtaining New Orleans seemed to lie in the possibility that Addington's peaceful administration in England might be driven into some act contrary to its vital interests; and even this chance was worth little, for so long as Bonaparte wanted peace, he could always keep it. England was thoroughly weary of war; and proved it by patiently looking on while Bonaparte, during the year, committed one arbitrary act after another, which at any previous time would have been followed by an instant withdrawal of the British minister from Paris.

On the other hand, the world could see that Bonaparte was already tired of peace; his rôle of beneficent shopkeeper disgusted him, and a new war in Europe was only a question of months. In such a case the blow might fall on the east bank of the Rhine, on Spain, or on England. Yet Bonaparte was in any case bound to keep Louisiana, or return it to Spain. Florida was not his to sell. The chance that Jefferson could buy either of these countries, even in case of a European war, seemed so small as hardly to be worth considering; but it existed, because Bonaparte was not a man like other men, and his action could never be calculated in advance.

The news that Leclerc was dead, that his army was annihilated, St. Domingo ruined, and the negroes more than ever beyond control, reached Paris and was printed in the "Moniteur" Jan. 7, 1803, in the same active week when Bernadotte, Laussat, and Victor were ordered from France to America, and Monroe was ordered from America to France. Of all the events of the time, Leclerc's death was the most decisive. The colonial system of France centered in St. Domingo. Without that island the system had hands, feet, and even a head, but no body. Of what use was Louisiana, when France had clearly lost the main colony which Louisiana was meant to feed and fortify? The new rule of France was not unused to failure. More than once he had suddenly given up his dearest plans and deserted his oldest companions when their success was hopeless. He had abandoned Paoli and Corsica with as little compunction as afterward he abandoned the army and the officers whom he led to Egypt. Obstinate in pursuing any object which led to his own advancement, he was quick to see the moment when pursuit became useless; and the difficulties that rose in his path toward colonial empire were quite as great as those which had driven him to abandon Corsica and Egypt. Not only had the island of St. Domingo been ruined by the war, its plantations destroyed, its labor paralyzed, and its population reduced to barbarism, so that the task of restoring its commercial value had become extremely difficult; but other and greater objections existed to a renewal of the struggle. The army dreaded service in St. Domingo, where certain death awaited every soldier; the expense was frightful; a year of war had consumed fifty thousand men and money in vast amounts, with no other result than to prove that at least as many men and as much money would be still needed before any return could be expected for so lavish an expenditure. In Europe war could be made to support war; in St. Domingo peace alone could but slowly repair some part of this frightful waste.

Leclerc was succeeded at St. Domingo by General Rochambeau, a son of the Comte de Rochambeau, who twenty years before had commanded the French corps which enabled Washington to capture Cornwallis at Yorktown. A brave officer, but known to be little fit for administration, Rochambeau was incompetent for the task that fell on him. Leclerc had warned the Government that in case of his own retirement he had no officer fit to replace him,—least of all Rochambeau, who was next in rank. Rochambeau wrote to inform the First Consul that thirty-five thousand men must be sent to save the island.[13] Without a new commander-in-chief of the highest ability, a new army was useless; and meanwhile Rochambeau was certain to waste the few thousand acclimated soldiers who should form its nucleus.

The First Consul found himself in a difficult and even dangerous situation. Probably the colonial scheme had never suited his tastes, and perhaps he had waited only until he should be firm in power in order to throw off the tutelage of Talleyrand; but the moment had arrived when his tastes coincided with policy. A second failure at St. Domingo would destroy his own credit, and disgust both the army and the public. Abandonment of the island was equally hazardous; for it required the abandonment of French traditions and a confession of failure. Retirement from St. Domingo was impossible, except under cover of some new enterprise; and as Europe stood, no other enterprise remained for France to undertake which would not lead her armies across the Rhine or the Pyrenees. For this undertaking Bonaparte was not yet ready; but even had he been so, it would have offered no excuse for abandoning the colonies. The ocean would still have been open, and St. Domingo within easy reach.

Only one resource remained. Bonaparte told no one his plans; but he was not a man to hesitate when decision was needed. From the day when news of Leclerc's death arrived, during the first week of January, 1803, the First Consul brooded over the means of abandoning St. Domingo without appearing to desert intentionally a policy dear to France. Talleyrand and Decrès were allowed to go on as before; they gave instructions to Bernadotte, and hurried the preparations of Victor, whom the ice and snow of Holland and the slowness of the workmen held motionless; they prepared a reinforcement of fifteen thousand men for Rochambeau, and Bonaparte gave all the necessary orders for hastening the departure of both expeditions. As late as February 5, he wrote to Decrès that fifteen thousand men had been, or were about to be, sent to St. Domingo, and that fifteen thousand more must be ready to sail by the middle of August. [14] Yet his policy of abandoning the colonial system had been already decided; for on January 30 the "Moniteur" produced Sebastiani's famous Report on the military condition of the East,—a publication which could have no other object than to alarm England.[15]

Livingston was quick to see the change of policy; but although he understood as much as was known to any one, he could not count with certainty on the result.[16] Not even Joseph and Lucien knew what was in their brother's mind. Talleyrand seems to have been elaborately deceived; even as late as February 19 he was allowed to instruct General Beurnonville, the French ambassador at Madrid, to express "the warm satisfaction which the last acts of sovereignty exercised by the King of Spain in Louisiana have given to the First Consul."[17] The last act of sovereignty exercised by Spain in Louisiana had been the closure of the Mississippi. Before Beurnonville could obey this order, Godoy, hastening to anticipate possible interference from France, promised Pinckney, February 28, that the entrepôt should be restored. King Charles's order of restitution bore date March 1, 1803; Beurnonville's note, urging the King to sustain Morales, bore date March 4, and March 10 Don Pedro Cevallos replied to Talleyrand's congratulation in a tone so evasive as to show that Godoy was again deceiving the First Consul.[18] Cevallos did not say that the right of deposit had ten days before been restored; he contented himself with mentioning the reasons alleged by Morales for his act, adding at the close the empty assurance that "in every way his Majesty prizes highly the applause of the French government." In January, only a few weeks before, Godoy had told Beurnonville, with unconcealed satisfaction, that Bonaparte should not have Florida,—although without Florida the town of New Orleans was supposed to be of little value. In February he snatched away what he could of New Orleans by replacing the Americans in all their privileges there.

Livingston plied the French officials with arguments and memorials; but he might have spared himself the trouble, for Bonaparte's policy was already fixed. The First Consul acted with the rapidity which marked all his great measures. England at once took Sebastiani's Report as a warning, and began to arm. February 20 Bonaparte sent to the Corps Législatif his Annual Report, or Message, which spoke of Great Britain in language that could not be disregarded; finally, March 12, Livingston saw a melodramatic spectacle which transfixed him with surprise and excitement.[19] The scene was at Madame Bonaparte's drawing-room; the actors Bonaparte and Lord Whitworth, the British ambassador. "I find, my Lord, your nation want war again!" said the First Consul. "No, sir," replied Whitworth; "we are very desirous of peace." "I must either have Malta or war!" rejoined Bonaparte. Livingston received these words from Lord Whitworth himself on the spot; and returning at once to his cabinet, wrote to warn Madison. Within a few days the alarm spread through Europe, and the affairs of St. Domingo were forgotten.

Bonaparte loved long-prepared transformation-scenes. Such a scene he was preparing, and the early days of April, 1803, found the actors eagerly waiting it. All the struggles and passions of the last two years were crowded into the explosion of April. At St. Domingo, horror followed fast on horror. Rochambeau, shut in Port au Prince,—drunken, reckless, surrounded by worthless men and by women more abandoned still, wallowing in the dregs of the former English occupation and of a half-civilized negro empire,—waged as he best could a guerilla war, hanging, shooting, drowning, burning all the negroes he could catch; hunting them with fifteen hundred bloodhounds bought in Jamaica for something more than one hundred dollars each; wasting money, squandering men; while Dessalines and Christophe massacred every white being within their reach. To complete Bonaparte's work, from which he wished to turn the world's attention, high among the Jura Mountains, where the ice and snow had not yet relaxed their grip upon the desolate little Fortress and its sunless casemate, in which for months nothing but Toussaint's cough had been heard, Commander Amiot wrote a brief military Report to the Minister of Marine:[20] "On the 17th [April 7], at half-past eleven o'clock of the morning, on taking him his food, I found him dead, seated on his chair near his fire." According to Tavernier, doctor of medicine and chirurgien of Pontarlier, who performed the autopsy, pleuro-pneumonia was the cause of Toussaint's death.

Toussaint never knew that St. Domingo had successfully resisted the whole power of France, and that had he been truer to himself and his color he might have worn the crown that became the plaything of Christophe and Dessalines; but even when shivering in the frosts of the Jura, his last moments would have glowed with gratified revenge, had he known that at the same instant Bonaparte was turning into a path which the negroes of St. Domingo had driven him to take, and which was to lead him to parallel at St. Helena the fate of Toussaint himself at the Château de Joux. In these days of passion, men had little time for thought; and the last subject on which Bonaparte thereafter cared to fix his mind was the fate of Toussaint and Leclerc. That the "miserable negro," as Bonaparte called him, should have been forgotten so soon was not surprising; but the prejudice of race alone blinded the American people to the debt they owed to the desperate courage of five hundred thousand Haytian negroes who would not be enslaved.

If this debt was due chiefly to the negroes, it was also in a degree due to Godoy and to Spain. In the new shifting of scenes, Godoy suddenly found himself, like Toussaint eighteen months before, face to face with Bonaparte bent on revenge. No one knew better than Godoy the dangers that hung over him and his country. Aware of his perils, he tried, as in 1795, to conciliate the United States by a course offensive to France. Not only did he restore the entrepôt at New Orleans, but he also admitted the claims for damages sustained by American citizens from Spanish subjects in the late war, and through Don Pedro Cevallos negotiated with Pinckney a convention which provided for a settlement of these claims. [21] Although he refused to recognize in this convention the spoliations made by Frenchmen within Spanish jurisdiction, and insisted that these were in their nature claims against France which Spain was not morally bound to admit, he consented to insert an article copied from the expunged Article II. of the treaty of Morfontaine, reserving to the United States the right to press these demands at a future time.

So well pleased was Jefferson with the conduct of Spain and the Spanish ministers, that not a complaint was made of ill treatment; and even the conduct of Morales did not shake the President’s faith in the friendliness of King Charles. No doubt he mistook the motives of this friendliness, for Spain had no other object than to protect her colonies and commerce on the Gulf of Mexico, and hoped to prevent attack by conciliation; while Madison imagined that Spain might be induced by money to part with her colonies and admit the United States to the Gulf. In this hope he instructed Pinckney,[22] in case he should find that Louisiana had not been retroceded to France, to offer a guaranty of Spanish territory west of the Mississippi as part of the consideration for New Orleans and the Floridas. The offer was made with a degree of cordiality very unlike the similar offer to France, and was pressed by Pinckney so zealously that at last Cevallos evaded his earnestness by a civil equivocation.

"The system adopted by his Majesty," said he[23], "not to dispossess himself of any portion of his States, deprives him of the pleasure of assenting to the cessions which the United States wish to obtain by purchase. . . . The United States can address themselves to the French government to negotiate the acquisition of territories which may suit their interest."

Cevallos knew that Bonaparte had bound himself formally never to alienate Louisiana, and in referring Pinckney to France he supposed himself safe. Pinckney, on the other hand, prided himself on having helped to prevent France from gaining Florida as well as Louisiana, and was anxious to secure West Florida for his own credit; while he had no idea that Louisiana could be obtained at all.

Yet nearly a week before this note was written Louisiana had become American property. So completely was Godoy deceived, that when April arrived and he saw Spain again about to be dragged into unknown perils, he never divined that he was to be struck in America; his anxieties rose from fear that Spain might be dragged into a new war in Europe, in subservience to France. He could expect to escape such a war only by a quarrel with Napoleon, and he knew that a war with Napoleon was a desperate resource.

In London statesmanship had an easier game, and played it at first simply and coolly. Rufus King watched it with anxious eyes. He wished to escape from the duty of expressing a diplomatic policy which he might not approve, to a Government which had other and heavier tasks than that of listening to his advice or warnings. The British Ministry behaved well to America; for their advices from Thornton led them to hope that the United States would, if properly supported, seize Louisiana and accept war with Bonaparte. "If you can obtain Louisiana,—well!" said Addington to Rufus King;[24] "if not, we ought to prevent its going into the hands of France."

  1. Cabinet Memoranda of Mr. Jefferson, April 8, 1803; Jefferson's Writings (Ford), i. 298.
  2. Madison to Livingston and Monroe, April 18 and 20, 1803; State Papers, ii. 555.
  3. Livingston to Madison, Nov. 11, 1802; State Papers, ii. 526.
  4. State Papers, ii. 556.
  5. Yrujo to Madison, Notes of April 19 and 20, 1803; MSS. State Department Archives.
  6. Bonaparte to Decrès, 6 Fructidor, An. x. (Aug. 24, 1802); Correspondance, viii. 4.
  7. Instructions secrètes pour le Capitaine-Général de la Louisiane, approuvées par le Premier Consul le 5 Frimaire, An xi. (Nov. 26, 1802); Archives de la Marine, MSS.
  8. Livingston to Madison, Feb. 18, 1803; State Papers, ii. 533.
  9. Talleyrand to Bernadotte, 24 Nivôse, An xi. (Jan. 14, 1803); Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
  10. Correspondance, viii. 145; Bonaparte to Decrès, 28 Frimaire, An xi. (Dec. 19, 1802).
  11. Correspondance, viii. 146; Bonaparte to Victor, 25 Frimaire, An xi. (Dec. 16, 1802).
  12. Livingston to Madison, Dec. 20, 1802; State Papers, ii. 528.
  13. Rochambeau to Decrès, 16 Frimaire, An xi. (Dec. 7, 1802); Archives de la Marine, MSS.
  14. Correspondance, viii. 201; Bonaparte to Decrès, 16 Pluviôse, An xi. (Feb. 5, 1803).
  15. Lucien Bonaparte et ses Mémoires, Th. Jung, ii. 165, n.; Lanfrey's Napoleon, ii. 495.
  16. Livingston to Madison, Feb. 18, 1803; State Papers, ii. 533.
  17. Beurnonville to Talleyrand, 15 Ventôse, An. xi. (March 6, 1803); Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
  18. Cevallos to Beurnonville, March 10, 1803; Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
  19. Livingston to Madison, March 12, 1803; State Papers, ii. 547.
  20. Amiot to Decrès, 19 Germinal, An xi. (April 9, 1803); Archives de la Marine, MSS.
  21. Claims Convention, Aug. 11, 1802; State Papers, ii. 476.
  22. Madison to Pinckney, May 11, 1802; State Papers, ii. 517.
  23. Cevallos to Pinckney, May 4, 1803; State Papers, ii. 557.
  24. Rufus King to Madison, April 2, 1803; State Papers, ii. 551.