=Louisiana Transferred to France.=—­In July, 1802, a royal order from Spain instructed the officials at New Orleans to close the port to American produce.  About the same time a disturbing rumor, long current, was confirmed—­Napoleon had coerced Spain into returning Louisiana to France by a secret treaty signed in 1800.  “The scalers of the Alps and conquerors of Venice” now looked across the sea for new scenes of adventure.  The West was ablaze with excitement.  A call for war ran through the frontier; expeditions were organized to prevent the landing of the French; and petitions for instant action flooded in upon Jefferson.

=Jefferson Sees the Danger.=—­Jefferson, the friend 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.