It was no argument of Jefferson’s or of the American diplomats, but the inevitable trend of events that finally brought about a change in Napoleon’s mind.  The army he sent to Hayti wasted away by disease and in combat with the blacks, and thereby not only diminished the forces he intended to throw into Louisiana, but also gave him a terrible object lesson as to what the fate of these forces was certain ultimately to be.  The attitude of England and Austria grew steadily more hostile, and his most trustworthy advisers impressed on Napoleon’s mind the steady growth of the Western-American communities, and the implacable hostility with which they were certain to regard any power that seized or attempted to hold New Orleans.  Napoleon could not afford to hamper himself with the difficult defence of a distant province, and to incur the hostility of a new foe, at the very moment when he was entering on another struggle with his old European enemies.  Moreover, he needed money in order to carry on the struggle.  To be sure he had promised Spain not to turn over Louisiana to another power; but he was quite as incapable as any Spanish statesman, or as Talleyrand himself, of so much as considering the question of breach of faith or loss of honor, if he could gain any advantage by sacrificing either.  Livingston was astonished to find that Napoleon had suddenly changed front, and that there was every prospect of gaining what for months had seemed impossible.  For some time there was haggling over the terms.  Napoleon at first demanded an exorbitant sum; but having once made up his mind to part with Louisiana his impatient disposition made him anxious to conclude the bargain.  He rapidly abated his demands, and the cession was finally made for fifteen millions of dollars.

    The Boundaries Undecided.

The treaty was signed in May, 1805.  The definition of the exact boundaries of the ceded territory was purposely left very loose by Napoleon.  On the east, the Spanish Government of the Floridas still kept possession of what are now several parishes in the State of Louisiana.  In the far west the boundary lines which divided upper Louisiana from the possessions of Britain on the north and of Spain on the south led through a wilderness where no white man had ever trod, and they were of course unmapped, and only vaguely guessed at.

    Blindness of the American Statesmen.

There was one singular feature of this bargain, which showed, as nothing else could have shown, how little American diplomacy had to do with obtaining Louisiana, and how impossible it was for any European power, even the greatest, to hold the territory in the face of the steady westward growth of the American people.  Napoleon forced Livingston and Monroe to become the reluctant purchasers not merely of New Orleans, but of all the immense territory which stretched vaguely northwestward to the Pacific.  Jefferson at moments felt a desire to get all this western territory; but