The significance of these events in the French West Indies was not lost upon President Jefferson. The conquest of Santo Domingo was the prelude to the occupation of Louisiana. It would be only a change of European proprietors, of absentee landlords, to be sure; but there was a world of difference between France, bent upon acquiring a colonial empire and quiescent Spain, resting on her past achievements. The difference was personified by Bonaparte and Don Carlos. The sovereignty of the lower Mississippi country could never be a matter of indifference to those settlers of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio who in the year 1799 sent down the Mississippi in barges, keel-boats, and flatboats one hundred and twenty thousand pounds of tobacco, ten thousand barrels of flour, twenty-two thousand pounds of hemp, five hundred barrels of cider, and as many more of whiskey, for transshipment and export. The right of navigation of the Mississippi was a diplomatic problem bequeathed by the Confederation. The treaty with Spain in 1795 had not solved the question, though it had established a modus vivendi. Spain had conceded to Americans the so-called right of deposit for three years—that is, the right to deposit goods at New Orleans free of duty and to transship them to ocean-going vessels; and the concession, though never definitely renewed, was tacitly continued. No; the people of the trans-Alleghany country could not remain silent and unprotesting witnesses to the retrocession of Louisiana.
Nor was Jefferson's interest in the Mississippi problem of recent origin. Ten years earlier as Secretary of State, while England and Spain seemed about to come to blows over the Nootka Sound affair, he had approached both France and Spain to see whether the United States might not acquire the island of New Orleans or at least a port near the mouth of the river "with a circum-adjacent territory, sufficient for its support, well-defined, and extraterritorial to Spain." In case of war, England would in all probability conquer Spanish Louisiana. How much better for Spain to cede territory on the eastern side of the Mississippi to a safe neighbor like the United States and thereby make sure of her possessions on the western waters of that river. It was "not our interest," wrote Mr. Jefferson, "to cross the Mississippi for ages!"
It was, then, a revival of an earlier idea when President Jefferson, officially through Robert R. Livingston, Minister to France, and unofficially through a French gentleman, Dupont de Nemours, sought to impress upon the First Consul the unwisdom of his taking possession of Louisiana, without ceding to the United States at least New Orleans and the Floridas as a "palliation." Even so, France would become an object of suspicion, a neighbor with whom Americans were bound to quarrel.
Undeterred by this naive threat, doubtless considering its source, the First Consul pressed Don Carlos for the delivery of Louisiana. The King procrastinated but at length gave his promise on condition that France should pledge herself not to alienate the province. Of course, replied the obliging Talleyrand. The King's wishes were identical with the intentions of the French government. France would never alienate Louisiana. The First Consul pledged his word. On October 15, 1802, Don Carlos signed the order that delivered Louisiana to France.
While the President was anxiously awaiting the results of his diplomacy, news came from Santo Domingo that Leclerc and his army had triumphed over Toussaint and his faithless generals, only to succumb to a far more insidious foe. Yellow fever had appeared in the summer of 1802 and had swept away the second army dispatched by Bonaparte to take the place of the first which had been consumed in the conquest of the island. Twenty-four thousand men had been sacrificed at the very threshold of colonial empire, and the skies of Europe were not so clear as they had been. And then came the news of Leclerc's death (November 2, 1802). Exhausted by incessant worry, he too had succumbed to the pestilence; and with him, as events proved, passed Bonaparte's dream of colonial empire in the New World.
Almost at the same time with these tidings a report reached the settlers of Kentucky and Tennessee that the Spanish intendant at New Orleans had suspended the right of deposit. The Mississippi was therefore closed to western commerce. Here was the hand of the Corsican.* Now they knew what they had to expect from France. Why not seize the opportunity and strike before the French legions occupied the country? The Spanish garrisons were weak; a few hundred resolute frontiersmen would speedily overpower them.
* It is now clear enough that Bonaparte was not directly
responsible for this act of the Spanish intendant. See
Channing, "History of the United States," vol. IV, p. 312,
and Note, 326-327.
Convinced that he must resort to stiffer measures if he would not be hurried into hostilities, President Jefferson appointed James Monroe as Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to France and Spain. He was to act with Robert Livingston at Paris and with Charles Pinckney, Minister to Spain, "in enlarging and more effectually securing our rights and interests in the river Mississippi and in the territories eastward thereof"—whatever these vague terms might mean. The President evidently read much into them, for he assured Monroe that on the event of his mission depended the future destinies of the Republic.
Two months passed before Monroe sailed with his instructions. He had ample time to study them, for he was thirty days in reaching the coast of France. The first aim of the envoys was to procure New Orleans and the Floridas, bidding as high as ten million dollars if necessary. Failing in this object, they were then to secure the right of deposit and such other desirable concessions as they could. To secure New Orleans, they might even offer to guarantee the integrity of Spanish possessions on the west bank of the Mississippi. Throughout the instructions ran the assumption that the Floridas had either passed with Louisiana into the hands of France or had since been acquired.
While the packet bearing Monroe was buffeting stormy seas, the policy of Bonaparte underwent a transformation—an abrupt transformation it seemed to Livingston. On the 12th of March the American Minister witnessed an extraordinary scene in Madame Bonaparte's drawing-room. Bonaparte and Lord Whitworth, the British Ambassador, were in conversation, when the First Consul remarked, "I find, my Lord, your nation want war again." "No, Sir," replied the Ambassador, "we are very desirous of peace." "I must either have Malta or war," snapped Bonaparte. The amazed onlookers soon spread the rumor that Europe was again to be plunged into war; but, viewed in the light of subsequent events, this incident had even greater significance; it marked the end of Bonaparte's colonial scheme. Though the motives for this change of front will always be a matter of conjecture, they are somewhat clarified by the failure of the Santo Domingo expedition. Leclerc was dead; the negroes were again in control; the industries of the island were ruined; Rochambeau, Leclerc's successor, was clamoring for thirty-five thousand more men to reconquer the island; the expense was alarming—and how meager the returns for this colonial venture! Without Santo Domingo, Louisiana would be of little use; and to restore prosperity to the West India island—even granting that its immediate conquest were possible—would demand many years and large disbursements. The path to glory did not lie in this direction. In Europe, as Henry Adams observes, "war could be made to support war; in Santo Domingo peace alone could but slowly repair some part of this frightful waste."