Meanwhile Mr. Robert R. Livingston, our minister at Paris, was pressing the French Government for concessions touching the free navigation of the Mississippi and the right of deposit at New Orleans, and was speaking to the First Consul, as a French historian observes, in a tone which "arrested his attention, and aroused him to a sense of the new power that was growing beyond the sea." Mr. Livingston was re-enforced by Mr. Monroe, sent out by President Jefferson as a special envoy in the spring of 1803, in order to effect some adjustment of the irritating questions which were seriously endangering the relations between France and the United States. The instructions of Mr. Madison, then secretary of State, to Mr. Monroe, show that the utmost he expected was to acquire from France the city of New Orleans and the Floridas, of which he believed France either then was, or was about to become, the actual owner. Indeed, the treaty by which France had acquired Louisiana was but imperfectly understood; and, in the slowness and difficulty of communication, Mr. Madison could not accurately know the full extent of the cession made at San Ildefonso. But Mr. Jefferson did not wait to learn the exact provisions of that treaty. He knew instinctively that they deeply concerned the United States. He saw with clear vision that by the commercial disability upon the western section of the Union its progress would be obstructed, its already attained prosperity checked; and that possibly its population, drawn first into discontent with the existing order of things, might be seduced into new and dangerous alliances. He determined, therefore, to acquire the control of the left bank of the Mississippi to its mouth, and by the purchase of the Floridas to give to Georgia and the Mississippi territory (now constituting the States of Alabama and Mississippi) unobstructed access to the Gulf.
But events beyond the ocean were working more rapidly for the interest of the United States than any influence which the government itself could exert. Before Mr. Monroe reached France in the spring of 1803, another war-cloud of portentous magnitude was hanging over Europe. The treaty of Amiens had proved only a truce. Awkwardly constructed, misconstrued and violated by both parties, it was about to be formally broken. Neither of the plenipotentiaries who signed the treaty was skilled in diplomacy. Joseph Bonaparte acted for his brother; England was represented by Lord Cornwallis, who twenty years before had surrendered the British army at Yorktown. The wits of London described him afterwards as a general who could neither conduct a war nor conclude a peace.
Fearing that, in the threatened conflict, England, by her superior naval force, would deprive him of his newly acquired colonial empire, and greatly enhance her own prestige by securing all the American possessions which France had owned prior to 1763, Bonaparte, by a dash in diplomacy as quick and as brilliant as his tactics on the field of battle, placed Louisiana beyond the reach of British power. After returning to St. Cloud from the religious services of Easter Sunday, April 10, 1803, he called two of his most trusted advisers, and, in a tone of vehemence and passion, said,—
"I know the full value of Louisiana, and have been desirous of repairing the fault of the French negotiators who lost it in 1763. A few lines of a treaty have restored it to me, and now I must expect to lose it. . . . The English wish to take possession of it, and it is thus they will begin the war. . . . They have already twenty ships of the line in the Gulf of Mexico. . . . The conquest of Louisiana would be easy. I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of their reach. . . . The English have successively taken from France the Canadas, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the richest portions of Asia. But they shall not have the Mississippi, which they covet."
The discussion went far into the night. The two ministers differed widely in the advice which they gave the First Consul; one was in favor of holding Louisiana at all hazards; the other urged its prudent cession rather than its inevitable loss by war. They both remained at St. Cloud for the night. At daybreak the minister who had advised the cession was summoned by Bonaparte to read dispatches from London, that moment received, which certainly foreshadowed war, as the English were making military and naval preparations with extraordinary rapidity. After reading the dispatches, the First Consul said,
"Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season. I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, it is the whole colony without any reservation. I know the value of what I abandon. It renounce it with the gravest regret. To attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly. I direct you to negotiate this affair with the envoy of the United States. Do not even wait the arrival of Mr. Monroe. Have an interview this very day with Mr. Livingston. . . . But I require a great deal of money for this war. I will be moderate. I want fifty millions for Louisiana."
The minister, who was opposed to the sale, interposed, in a subsequent interview, some observations "upon what the Germans call the souls, as to whether they could be the subject of a contract or sale." Bonaparte replied with undisguised sarcasm,—
"You are giving me the ideology of the law of nature. But I require money to make war on the richest nation in the world. Send your maxims to London. I am sure they will be greatly admired there."
The First Consul afterwards added, "Perhaps it will be objected that the Americans will be found too powerful for Europe in two or three centuries; but my foresight does not embrace such remote fears. Besides, we may hereafter expect rivalries among the members of the Union. The confederations, which are called perpetual, only last till one of the contracting parties finds it in his interest to break them."