ature of Louisiana,
The Madison Papers, Ingersoll's Historic Sketch of the Second War
between Great Britain and the United States, Cooke's Seven Campaigns in
the Peninsula, Hill's Recollections of an Artillery Officer, Coke's
History of the Rifle Brigade, Diary of Private Timewell, and Cooke's
Narrative of Events. No one would do justice to himself or his subject
if he should write a history of the battle of New Orleans without
availing himself of the treasures of the Howard Library.

Z.F. SMITH.

INTRODUCTION

England was apparently more liberal than Spain or France when, in the
treaty of 1783, she agreed to the Mississippi River as the western
boundary of the United States. Spain was for limiting the territory of
the new republic on the west to the crest of the Alleghany Mountains, so
as to secure to her the opportunity of conquering from England the
territory between the mountains and the Great River. Strangely enough
and inconsistently enough, France supported Spain in this outrageous
effort to curtail the territory of the new republic after she had helped
the United States to conquer it from England, or rather after General
Clark had wrested it from England for the colony of Virginia, and while
Virginia was still in possession of it. The seeming liberality of
England, however, may not have been more disinterested than the scheming
of Spain and France in this affair. England did not believe that the
United States could exist as a permanent government, but that the
confederated States would disintegrate and return to her as colonies.
The King of England said as much when the treaty was made. If, then,
the States were to return to England as colonies, the more territory
they might bring with them the better, and hence a large grant was
acknowledged in the treaty of peace. The acts of England toward the
United States after acknowledging their independence indicate that the
fixing of the western boundary on the Mississippi had as much
selfishness as liberality, if indeed it was not entirely selfish.

The ink was scarcely dry upon the parchment which bore evidence of the
ratified treaty of 1783 when the mother country began acts of hostility
and meanness against her children who had separated from her and begun a
political life for themselves. When the English ships of war, which had
blockaded New York for seven long years, sailed out of the harbor and
took their course toward the British Isles, instead of