verything, sought to secure better terms. But the First Consul
would not abate his demands. On May 2, 1803, Livingston and Monroe set
their signatures to a treaty by which Napoleon agreed to sell a province
of which he was not in possession and which he had contracted never to
alienate. The price to be paid was the sum last named, amounting in
American figures to $11,250,000. The amount of outstanding claims which
the United States agreed to assume was estimated at $3,750,000. After
signing his name to the treaty, Livingston rose and shook hands with
Monroe and Marbois. "We have lived long," he said with emotion, "but
this is the noblest work of our lives."

In less exalted moments, Livingston and Monroe may well have
experienced some disquietude at what they had done. The instructions
given to Monroe contemplated no more extensive purchase than New Orleans
and West Florida, at a sum not exceeding $10,000,000. The envoys had set
out to purchase a tract of land which controlled the delta of the
Mississippi they had acquired an empire beyond the Mississippi whose
limits they did not know, at a price which exceeded their allowance by
$5,000,000. Besides, it was not at first believed that West Florida was
included in this purchase. Livingston was keenly disappointed, until on
narrower examination he found, in the words of the treaty, evidence
which satisfied him that France--to quote Mr. Henry Adams--"had actually
bought West Florida without knowing it and had sold it to the United
States without being paid for it." The words on which he founded his
theory were those which retroceded Louisiana "with the same extent as it
now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it,
and such as it should be according to the treaties subsequently entered
into between Spain and the other States." Monroe soon adopted
Livingston's view and pressed it upon the President.

The news of the purchase of Louisiana reached the United States in the
latter part of June and occasioned much rejoicing among stanch
Republicans of the Middle and Southern States. The people east of the
Alleghanies were densely ignorant about this Spanish province, but they
sensed in a vague way that its possession by a power like France would
have dragged the United States into the maelstrom of European politics.
The Federalists of the Eastern States looked askance at this as at every
act of the Administration of Thomas Jefferson, without knowing an