lish Government. Bonaparte was right
in assuming that prompt action on his part was necessary to save
Louisiana from the hands of the English. Twelve days after the
treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States was signed, the British
ambassador at Paris, Lord Whitworth, demanded his passports. At
Dover he met the French ambassador to England, General Andreossy,
who had likewise demanded his passports. Lord Whitworth loaded
General Andreossy with tokens of esteem, and conducted him to the
ship which was to bear him back to France. According to an eminent
historian, "the two ambassadors parted in the presence of a great
concourse of people, agitated, uneasy, sorrowful. On the eve of
so important a determination, the warlike passion subsided; and
men were seized with a dread of the consequences of a desperate
conflict. At this solemn moment the two nations seemed to bid each
other adieu, not to meet again till after a tremendous war and the
convulsion of the world."

THE DESIGNS OF ENGLAND FOILED.

England's acquisition of Louisiana would have proved in the highest
degree embarrassing, if not disastrous, to the Union. At that time
the forts of Spain, transferred to France, and thence to the United
States, were on the east side of the Mississippi, hundreds of miles
from its mouth. If England had seized Louisiana, as Bonaparte
feared, the Floridas, cut off from the other colonies of Spain,
would certainly have fallen into her hands by easy and prompt
negotiation, as they did, a few years later, into the hands of the
United States. England would thus have had her colonies planted
on the three land-sides of the Union, while on the ocean-side her
formidable navy confronted the young republic. No colonial
acquisition ever made by her on any continent has been so profitable
to her commerce, and so strengthening her military position, as
that of Louisiana would have proved. This fact was clearly seen
by Bonaparte when he hastily made the treaty ceding it to the United
States. That England did not at once attempt to seize it, in
disregard of Bonaparte's cession, has been a source of surprise to
many historians. The obvious reason is that she dreaded the
complication of a war in America when she was about to assume so
heavy a burden in the impending European conflict. The inhabitants
of the Union in 1803 were six millions in number, of great energy
and confidence. A lar