d of France and sworn
enemy of England, compelled to choose in the interest of America, never
winced. "The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France,"
he wrote to Livingston, the American minister in Paris, "works sorely on
the United States. It completely reverses all the political relations of
the United States and will form a new epoch in our political course....
There is on the globe 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 an attitude of defiance.
Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific
dispositions, her feeble state would induce her to increase our
facilities there.... Not so can it ever be in the hands of France....
The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence
which is to restrain her forever within her low water mark.... It seals
the union of the two nations who in conjunction can maintain exclusive
possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the
British fleet and nation.... This is not a state of things we seek or
desire. It is one which this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us
as necessarily as any other cause by the laws of nature brings on its
necessary effect."

=Louisiana Purchased.=--Acting on this belief, but apparently seeing
only the Mississippi outlet at stake, Jefferson sent his friend, James
Monroe, to France with the power to buy New Orleans and West Florida.
Before Monroe arrived, the regular minister, Livingston, had already
convinced Napoleon that it would be well to sell territory which might
be wrested from him at any moment by the British sea power, especially
as the war, temporarily stopped by the peace of Amiens, was once more
raging in Europe. Wise as he was in his day, Livingston had at first no
thought of buying the whole Louisiana country. He was simply dazed when
Napoleon offered to sell the entire domain and get rid of the business
altogether. Though staggered by the proposal, he and Monroe decided to
accept. On April 30, they signed the treaty of cession, agreeing to pay
$11,250,000 in six per cent bonds and to discharge certain debts due
French citizens, making in all approximately fifteen millions. Spain
protested, Napoleon's brother fumed, French newspapers objected; but the
deed was done.

=Jefferson