with New Orleans, to Spain.  By the treaty negotiated with Spain by Lucien Bonaparte in 1800 her share was given back to France.  On the 80th April 1803 Napoleon sold the whole to the United States for 80,000,000 francs (L 3,260,000), to the intense anger of his brothers Joseph and Lucien.  Lucien was especially proud of having obtained the cession for which Napoleon was, at that time, very anxious; but both brothers were horrified when Napoleon disclosed how little he cared for constitutional forms by telling them that if the Legislature, as his brothers threatened, would not ratify the treaty, he would do without the ratification; see Iung’s Letter, tome ii. p. 128.

Napoleon’s most obvious motives were want of money and the certainty of the seizure of the province by England, as the rupture with her was now certain.  But there was perhaps another cause.  The States had already been on the point of seizing the province from Spain, which had interfered with their trade (Hinton’s United States, p. 435, and Thiers tome iv, p. 320).

Of the sum to be paid, 20,000,000 were to go to the States, to cover the illegal seizures of American ships by the French navy, a matter which was not settled for many years later.  The remaining 80,000,000 were employed in the preparations for the invasion of England; see Thiers, tome iv. pp. 320 and 326, and Lanfrey, tome iii. p. 48.  The transaction is a remarkable one, as forming the final withdrawal of France from North America (with the exception of some islands on the Newfoundland coast), where she had once held such a proud position.  It also eventually made an addition to the number of slave States.]—­

They cost more than they produce; and they will escape from us, some time or other, as all colonies ultimately do from the parent country.  Our whole colonial system is absurd; it forces us to pay for colonial produce at a rate nearly double that for which it may be purchased from our neighbours.

When Lord Hawkesbury consented to evacuate Malta, on condition that it should be independent of France and Great Britain, he must have been aware that such a condition would never be fulfilled.  He cared little for the order of St. John, and he should have put, by way of postscript, at the bottom of his note, “We will keep Malta in spite of you.”  I always told the First Consul that if he were in the situation of the English he would act the same part; and it did not require much sagacity to foretell that Malta would be the principal cause of the rupture of peace.  He was of my opinion; but at that moment he thought everything depended on concluding the negotiations, and I entirely agreed with him.  It happened, as was foreseen, that Malta caused the renewal of war.  The English, on being called upon to surrender the island, eluded the demand, shifted about, and at last ended by demanding that Malta should be placed under the protection of the King of Naples,—­that is to say, under the protection of a power entirely at their command, and to which they might dictate what they pleased.  This was really too cool a piece of irony!