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:—