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1802] The Mississippi closed to trade. 325 was to be Vice-President. In 1800 every elector who voted for Jefferson voted also for Burr. Each candidate therefore received the same number of votes ; and, though this number was the highest and a majority of all the votes cast, neither was elected. The duty of choosing between Jefferson and Burr now passed to the House of Representatives, which, after a long and bitter struggle, decided in favour of Jefferson. By an Act of Congress, passed in 1790, Philadelphia was made the seat of government till 1800, after which date the city of Washington was to take its place. In obedience to the law, all departments of government were removed to the banks of the Potomac during the summer of 1800; and there, in the half-finished Capitol, Congress assembled for the session of 1800-1. It was at Washington therefore that Jefferson was inaugurated on March 4, 1801. There is still current among his countrymen an idle story that on Inauguration Day Jefferson, mounted on a white horse, rode alone to the Capitol, hitched his horse to a fence, entered the building unattended, and took the oath of office. The story is pure fiction. He walked to the Capitol attended by militia and a great crowd of admirers and partisans, drawn to Washington by the excitement of the contested election, was greeted at the Capitol by a salute of guns, and took the oath with all the usual ceremony. Scarcely was he settled in office, when he heard rumours of the secret treaty of San Ildefonso and the retrocession of Louisiana to France. A copy of the treaty which he received towards the close of 1801 turned the rumours into a certainty ; and the action of Don Juan Ventura Morales, the Spanish Intendant at New Orleans, roused the whole Mississippi valley, and brought affairs to a crisis. By the treaty of 1795 the King of Spain was bound to permit the citizens of the United States, for three years to come, " to deposit their merchandise and effects in the port of New Orleans, and to export them thence without paying any other duty than a fair price for the hire of stores." Should his Majesty at the end of three years see fit to close New Orleans to American traders, he was " to assign to them on another part of the banks of the Mississippi an equivalent establishment." In flat violation of this stipulation, Morales, in October, 1802, forbade Americans to deposit their mer- chandise at New Orleans, but did not assign any " equivalent establish- ment." As the news passed up the valley, the people of Tennessee and Kentucky cried out for war. The Federalists of the East joined in the cry ; and, when Congress met, an earnest effort was made to force the Administration to take possession of New Orleans. But Jefferson obtained an appropriation of $2,000,000 for the purchase of West Florida and New Orleans, and, with the consent of the Senate, sent James Monroe to Paris to aid Livingston, the American minister there, in making the purchase. A renewal of war between France and Great Britain was at this moment (January, 1803) imminent, and Napoleon was anxious to avoid complications in America. Accordingly, before Monroe reached CH. IX.