166 ANDREW FISH
position her possession of New Orleans was an alarming cir- cumstance to the Americans, who were at the time developing to the west and dependent upon the Mississippi for transporta- tion and upon New Orleans as a port of shipment for their products. By a stroke of policy in which was mingled sa- gacity and sheer good luck Jefferson, who was then president, purchased from Napoleon, hard pressed in Europe and with no leisure in which to develop a colonial empire, not New Orleans only but the whole of Louisiana for what seems to us today the ridiculously small sum of fifteen million dollars. This im- portant step doubled the area of the United States ; it also led to disputes with Great Britain about the northern boundary. This line was eventually fixed in 1818 by a treaty signed by both parties in which it was agreed to accept the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude from the Lake of the Woods to the Rockies. We must remember that forty-ninth parallel, it plays an important part in subsequent events.
The forty-ninth parallel was definite enough so far as it went, but it was not at the time accepted as the dividing line between the possessions of the two powers lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, the region known as the Oregon Country. Four powers had established and acknowledged rights on the Pacific Coast Spain, the United States, Great Britain, and Russia. By agreement with the "United States in 1818, the northern limit of the Spanish sphere was set at the forty-second parallel ; by treaties between the United States and Russia, and Great Britain and Russia, in 1825 the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes was accepted as the southern Russian boundary. The Oregon country lay in between, having for its eastern boundary the Rocky Mountains. Over this territory the United States and Great Britain waged a long, and sometimes very bitter, diplo- matic war; indeed, it seemed at times as if the matter might be pressed to a decision by more destructive weapons than the arguments of diplomats.
