Book II — Into the West
I The Louisiana Purchase
“Spain, knowing she cannot hold Louisiana, has ceded it to France!” The winds of ocean bore the message to America.
“Napoleon? Is he to control us also?”
Never so vast a shadow overawed the world. Afar they had read of his battles, had dreaded his name. Instantly colossal Napoleon loomed across the prairies of the West.
Napoleon had fifty-four ships and fifty thousand troops, the flower of his army, sailing to re-establish slavery in Hayti. But a step and he would be at the Mississippi. He was sending Laussat, a French prefect, to take over New Orleans and wait for the army.
“Shall we submit? And is this to be the end of all our fought-for liberty, that Napoleon should rule America?”
The fear of France was now as great as had been the admiration.
Gaily the flatboats were floating down, laden with flour and bacon, hams and tobacco, seeking egress to Cuba and Atlantic seaports, when suddenly, in October, 1802, the Spanish Intendant at New Orleans closed the Mississippi. Crowding back, for twenty thousand miles inland, were the products of the Autumn.
The western country blazed; only by strenuous effort could Congress keep a backwoods army from marching on New Orleans. A powerful minority at Washington contended for instant seizure.
Pittsburg, with shore lined with shipping, roared all the way to the gulf, “No grain can be sold down the river on account of those piratical Spaniards!”
Appeal after appeal went up to Jefferson, “Let us sweep them into the sea!”
What hope with a foreign nation at our gates? Spain might be got rid of, but France—Monroe was dispatched to France to interview Napoleon.
“The French must not have New Orleans,” was the lightning thought of Jefferson. “No one but ourselves must own our own front door.”
And Jefferson penned a letter to Livingstone, the American minister at Paris:
“There is on the globe but one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market. France placing herself in that door assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Not so France. The impetuosity of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, render it impossible that France and the United States can continue friends when they meet in so irritating a position. The day that France takes possession of New Orleans—from that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.”
As Jefferson placed that letter in the hands of Monroe he added:
“In Europe nothing but Europe is seen. But this little event, of France’s possessing herself of Louisiana,—this speck which now appears an invisible point on the horizon,—is the embryo of a tornado.
“I must secure the port of New Orleans and the mastery of the navigation of the Mississippi.
“We must have peace. The use of the Mississippi is indispensable. We must purchase New Orleans.”
“You are aware of the sensibility of our Western citizens,” Madison was writing to Madrid. “To them the Mississippi is everything. It is the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and all the navigable rivers of the Atlantic States, formed into one.”
But Napoleon’s soldiers were dying at San Domingo, the men with whom he would have colonised Louisiana. At that moment the flint and steel of France and England struck, and the spark meant—war. England stood ready to seize the mouth of the Mississippi.
After the solemnities of Easter Sunday at St. Cloud, April 10, 1803, Napoleon summoned two of his ministers.
“I know the full value of Louisiana!” he began with vehement passion, walking up and down the marble parlour. “A few lines of treaty have restored it to me, and I have scarcely recovered it when I must expect to lose it. But if it escapes from me,” the First Consul shook his finger menacingly, “it shall one day cost dearer to those who oblige me to strip myself of it, than to those to whom I wish to deliver it. The English have successively taken from France, Canada, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the richest portions of Asia. They shall not have the Mississippi which they covet. They have twenty ships of war in the Gulf of Mexico, they sail over those seas as sovereigns. The conquest of Louisiana would be easy. I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of their reach. I know not whether they are not already there. I think of ceding it to the United States. They only ask one town of me in Louisiana but I already consider the colony as entirely lost, and it appears to me that in the hands of this growing power it will be more useful to the policy and even to the commerce of France, than if I should attempt to keep it.”
He turned to Barbé-Marbois, who had served as Secretary of the French Legation at Philadelphia during the whole war of the American Revolution.
“We should not hesitate to make a sacrifice of that which is about slipping from us,” said Barbé-Marbois. “War with England is inevitable; shall we be able to defend Louisiana? Can we restore fortifications that are in ruins? If, Citizen Consul, you, who have by one of the first acts of your government made sufficiently apparent your intention of giving this country to France, now abandon the idea of keeping it, there is no person that will not admit that you yield to necessity.”
Far into the night they talked, so late that the ministers slept at St. Cloud.
At daybreak Napoleon summoned Barbé-Marbois. “Read me the dispatches from London.”
“Sire,” returned the Secretary, looking over the papers, “naval and military preparations of every kind are making with extraordinary rapidity.”
Napoleon leaped to his feet and strode again the marble floor.
“Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season. I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I will cede, but the whole colony without reservation. I know the price of what I abandon. I renounce it with regret. To attempt to retain it would be folly. I direct you to negotiate this affair with the United States. Do not even await the arrival of Mr. Monroe; have an interview this very day with Mr. Livingstone; but I require a great deal of money for this war, and I would not like to commence it with new contributions. I want fifty millions, and for less than that sum I will not treat. To-morrow you shall have your full powers.”
The minister waited.
“Mr. Monroe is on the point of arriving,” continued Napoleon. “Neither this minister, nor his colleague, is prepared for a decision which goes infinitely beyond anything they are about to ask of us. Begin by making them overtures, without any subterfuge. Acquaint me, hour by hour, of your progress.”
“What will you pay for all Louisiana?” bluntly asked Barbé-Marbois that day of the astonished Livingstone.
“All Louisiana! New Orleans is all I ask for,” answered Livingstone. So long had Talleyrand trifled and deceived, the American found himself distrustful of these French diplomatists.
“But I offer the province,” said Barbé-Marbois.
Surprised, doubtful, Livingstone listened. “I have not the necessary powers.”
The next day Monroe arrived.
“There must be haste or the English will be at New Orleans,” said Barbé-Marbois. “How much will you pay for the whole province?”
“The English? Fifteen millions,” answered the Americans.
“Incorporate Louisiana as soon as possible into your Union,” said Napoleon, “give to its inhabitants the same rights, privileges, and immunities as to other citizens of the United States.
“And let them know that we separate ourselves from them with regret; let them retain for us sentiments of affection; and may their common origin, descent, language, and customs perpetuate the friendship.”
The papers were drawn up and signed in French and in English.
“We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our lives!” exclaimed Livingstone, as he and Barbé-Marbois and Monroe arose and shook hands across the document.
“This accession of territory strengthens for ever the power of the United States,” said Napoleon, coming in to look at the treaty. And as he affixed that signature, “Napoleon,” he smiled,—“I have just given to England a maritime rival, that sooner or later will humble her pride.”
And on that day the Mississippi was opened, to be closed by a foreign power no more for ever.
But no sooner had Napoleon parted with Louisiana than he began to repent. “Hasten,” the ministers warned Jefferson, “the slightest delay may lose us the country.”
The word reached America.
“Jefferson—bought New Orleans? bought the Mississippi? bought the entire boundless West?”
Men gasped, then cheered. Tumultuous excitement swept the land. On July 3, 1803, an infant Republic hugging the Atlantic, on July 4, a world power grasping the Pacific!
“A bargain!” cried the Republicans.
“Unconstitutional!” answered the Federalists.
“The East will become depopulated.”
“Fifteen millions! Fifteen millions for that wilderness! Why, that would be tons of money! Waggon loads of silver five miles long. We have not so much coin in the whole country!”