2d. Of the possession taken, and establishment made by La Salle, at the bay of St. Bernard, west of the rivers Trinity and Colorado, by authority of Louis XIV, in 1685; notwithstanding the subsequent destruction of the colony.
3d. Of the charter of Louis XIV, to Crozat in 1712.
4th. The historical authority of Du Pratz, Champigny, and the Count de Vergennes.
5th. Of the authority of De Lisle's map, and of the map published in 1762 by Don Thomas Lopez, geographer to the king of Spain, as well as of various other maps, atlases, and geographical and historical authorities.
By an article of the secret treaty of San Ildefonso, in October, 1800, Spain retroceded Louisiana to France; yet this treaty was not promulgated till the beginning of 1802. The paragraph of cession is as follows: "His Catholic majesty engages to retrocede to the French republic, six months after the full and entire execution of the conditions and stipulations above recited relative to his Royal Highness, the Duke of Parma, the colony and province of Louisiana, with the same extent that it already has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be, after the treaties passed subsequently between Spain and other powers." In 1803, Bonaparte, the first consul of the French republic, ceded Louisiana to the United States, as fully and in the same manner as it had been retroceded to France by Spain in the treaty of San Ildefonso; and, by virtue of this grant, Messieurs Madison, Monroe, Adams, Clay, Van Buren, and Jackson contended that the original limits of the state had been the Rio Grande. However, by the 3rd article of our treaty with Spain in 1819, all our pretensions to extend the territory of Louisiana towards Mexico or the Rio Grande, were resigned and abandoned by adopting the River Sabine as our southern confine in that quarter. See Lyman's diplomacy of the United States. Vol. 1, p. 368, and vol. 2, p. 136.
The following extract from a valuable letter with which the author was favored by Ex-President Adams, who, as secretary of state, conducted the negotiations with Spain, will explain his opinions and acts upon a subject of so much importance.
Quincy, 7th July, 1847.
"Whoever sets out with an inquiry respecting the right of territories in the American hemisphere claimed by Europeans, must begin by settling certain conventional principles of right and wrong before he can enter upon the discussion.
"For example what right had Columbus to Cat Island, otherwise called Guanahani? Who has the right to it now and how came they by it? The flag of St. George and the Dragon now waves over it; but who had the right to take possession of it because Christopher Columbus found it,—the paltriest island in the midst of the ocean. European statesmen, warriors, and writers on what are called the laws of nations, have laid down a system of laws upon which they found this right. Have the Carribee Indians, in whose possession that Island was discovered by Columbus, ever assented to that system of right and wrong?