Paris and Madrid to settle this matter. This measure being a visible one, and the person named peculiarly proper with the Western country, crushed at once and put an end to all further attempts on the Legislature. From that moment all has become quiet; and the more readily in the Western country, as the sudden alliance of these new federal friends had of itself already began to make them suspect the wisdom of their own course. The measure was moreover proposed from another cause. We must know at once whether we can acquire New Orleans or not. We are satisfied nothing else will secure us against a war at no distant period; and we cannot press this reason without beginning those arrangements which will be necessary if war is hereafter to result. For this purpose it was necessary that the negotiators should be fully possessed of every idea we have on the subject, so as to meet the propositions of the opposite party, in what ever form they may be offered; and give them a shape admissible by us without being obliged to await new instructions hence. With this view, we have joined Mr. Monroe with yourself at Paris, and to Mr. Pinckney at Madrid, although we believe it will be hardly necessary for him to go to this last place. Should we fail in this object of the mission, a further one will be superadded for the other side of the channel. On this subject you will be informed by the Secretary of State, and Mr. Monroe will be able also to inform you of all our views and purposes. By him I send another letter to Dupont, whose aid may be of the greatest service, as it will be divested of the shackles of form. The letter is left open for your perusal, after which I wish a wafer stuck in it before it be delivered. The official and the verbal communications to you by Mr. Monroe will be so full and minute, that I need not trouble you with an inofficial repetition of them. The future destinies of our country hang on the event of this negotiation, and I am sure they could not be placed in more able or more zealous hands. On our parts we shall be satisfied that what you do not effect, connot be effected. Accept therefore assurances of my sincere and constant affection and high respect. R. R. Livingston to James Madison. PARIS, February 5, 1803. DEAR SIR: Not knowing where to direct the enclosed, I submit it to your care. The bearer of this to Nantz waits, so that I can write you nothing but that the Louisiana armament is still icebound. The Floridas are not yet ceded, owing, I believe, to some difficulty about Parma, and the solicitude of the Emperor of Russia to provide for the King of Sardinia. Spain is however prepared to make the cession, and I presume it will be done. I have precise answers from you to H. Doc. 431-7 none of my inquiries, and am much at a loss how to act. I have much to say, but am not allowed to enlarge. You shall hear from me by the first safe conveyance. I am, etc., Hon. JAMES MADISON, R. R. LIVINGSTON. Secretary of State. James Madison, Secretary of State, to Charles Pinckney and James Monroe. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: You will be herewith furnished with a joint commission to treat with His Catholic Majesty, and with a letter of credence to him. For the object of the commission, and as a guide to your negotiations, I refer you to the instructions given in relation to the French Government. Whatever portion of the arrangements contemplated may be found to depend not on the French, but on the Spanish Government, is to be sought from the latter, on the like terms as if they had depended on the former. The scale of value applied to the distinct territories in question will deserve particular attention; so will the provision for paying our citizens who have claims on Spain out of the sums stipulated as the price of her territorial possessions. Among these claims it will be important to include, not only those within the description contained in the convention signed by Mr. Pinckney in August last, but such as may be founded on unlawful acts committed within Spanish responsibility by other than Spanish subjects, and on acts committed by Spanish subjects, within the Spanish colonies, inconsistent with true equity, though not with the forms of law. Your particular attention will also be due, in case a cession should not be attained, to an enlargement of our right of deposit at New Orleans, to the establishment of suitable deposits at the mouths of the rivers, passing from the United States through the Floridas, as well as to the free navigation of those rivers by citizens of the United States. Useful hints on these subjects may be found in the letter of which a copy is annexed from the Consul of the United States at New Orleans. I refer for another object which will deserve your attention, to the letter from the Department of State of the 27th of November, to the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States, which urges the necessity of some provision by the Governments of Europe having American Colonies, by which the irregular and injurious proceedings of colonial officers towards the United States may be more effectually controlled, or more expeditiously corrected, than by crossing the Atlantic with representations on such occasions. Such a provision is not more due to our just expectations than to the interests which those Governments have in maintaining the amicable relations which subsist with the United States. In the same letter, notice was given that the Spanish Government would be held responsible for whatever damages might be sustained by our citizens in consequence of the violation of the treaty by the Intendant at New Orleans. It will be proper to obtain from that Government a stipulation that will provide for such contingent damages. In case the convention, already on foot, should be open for such an article, it may be therein inserted. Should that opportunity not exist, it will be necessary to authorize, by a supplemental article, the Commissioners appointed under that convention to award the indemnifications. I have the honor, &c., JAMES MADISON. R. R. Livingston to the Secretary of State. PARIS, February 18, 1803. DEAR SIR: I have been honored by yours of the am pleased to find that you are satisfied with my applications to the Government on the subject of the debt; I am only sorry that those applications have hitherto been unsuccessful, and, as far as appears, will continue to be, unless some motive more efficacious than that of justice, or national faith or credit, is held out. To enter into the financial arrangements of people in power here would lead me into very delicate discussion, which would not tend to any advantage proportioned to the risk it might subject me to. I still think that if anything is done to satisfy our citizens, it must be by some advantageous offer on the part of our Government. You will find some of my ideas on that subject sketched in my former letters. As you have intimated the propriety of opening some other channel of communication with the First Consul than through the Minister, this I have effectually done, so as to have got several unofficial communications under his eye, and to have learnt his sentiments thereon. I can have a personal conference with him when I choose, having made arrangements for the purpose; but I defer it for two reasons: First, I have never yet had any specific instructions from you how to act or what to offer. To meet him merely to talk of the justice of our claims, and of our rights on the Mississippi, would be only to say ungracious truths, and excite prejudices which may render a future conference more difficult; and, second, because it is one of the traits of his character when he has once fully avowed a sentiment not easily to change it. I have, therefore, thought it best to address myself officially to the Minister, and unofficially to the only man supposed to have any sort of influence over him. I have accordingly put into his hands some notes containing plain truth mixed with that species of personal attention which I know to be most pleasing. The delicate subject of these notes makes me unwilling to send them unless I can find time to put them in cipher, which I fear will not be the case by this conveyance; you will, however, have them in the first letter I write to the President, which will be by this or the next conveyance. I do not mention the channel I allude to, because I wish it only to be known to yourself and the President, and my last letter to him has sufficiently explained it. The only basis on which I think it possible to do anything here is to connect our claims with our offers to purchase the Floridas. Upon this subject my notes turn. I have first endeavored to show how little advantage France is likely to make from these colonies; the temptation they offer to Britain to attack them by sea and from Canada; the effect the conquest of them by Britain would have upon the islands; and the monopoly which that conquest would give to a rival Power of the trade of the West as well as of the East Indies. I have dwelt upon the importance of a friendly intercourse between them and us, both as it respects their commerce and the security of their islands; and I have proposed to them the relinquishment of New Orleans and West Florida, as far as the river Perdido, together with all the territory lying to the north of the Arkansas, under an idea that it was necessary to interpose us between them and Canada, as the only means of preventing an attack from that quarter. I did not speak of East Florida because I found they consider the navigation of the Gulf as very important; for this I proposed an indefinite sum, not wishing to mention any till I should receive your instructions, that it should be a condition of this treaty that the American debt should be inscribed on their 5 per cent. stock. I knew it would be vain to render them our creditors by deducting this out of our payment, because actual money would alone have any effect in carrying the plan through; and even that must be managed with some circumspection, or no plan will succeed. These propositions, with certain accompaniments, were well received, and were some days under the First Consul's consideration; when it was thought a better bargain might be made on the spot; and I was told that General Bernadotte would have full power to treat on this subject in America on the basis on which I had placed it. My answer to this information you will find in the enclosed note. I am now lying on my oars in hopes of something explicit from you. I consider the object of immense importance; and this, perhaps, the favorable moment to press it, because the affairs of the islands are yet very doubtful, and the armament is still blocked up by the ice in Holland; though as we now have a thaw here I fear they will not be so much longer. My plan is much relished by the person through whom it was proposed. General Bernadotte sees. the awkward situation in which he will be placed if he goes out while our demands remain unsatisfied. But nobody dares to offer an opinion when that of the First Consul has been expressed. And, at present, a very unexpected difficulty has arisen. I told you that Parma would be offered for the Floridas, and that General Bournonville was sent to negotiate the business. It was never doubted a moment here that it would be effected; this I learned from Talleyrand and the Spanish Ambassador. They intimated that the treaty would be signed the day the King returned from Barcelona; and their information accorded with that which Lord Whitworth had received. I learn now from the Spanish Ambassador that the thing has met with some difficulty, as he says, not because of any aversion in the Court to make the cession, but of some difference between the Prince of Peace and General Bournonville. I believe, however, that this is not the sole cause; but that Spain begins to see that, in receiving Parma, she will receive nothing; as it will be rendered subservient to another arrangement, as I hinted in my last. You will consider this rather as a conjecture than as anything I am perfectly founded in relating. The essential fact for us is that the Floridas are not yet ceded. Mr. Dazara, yesterday, told me that he began to have his doubts whether they would be; but France is fully impressed with the nullity of her possession in Louisiana unless she has some port in the Gulf. Indeed, the Minister told me yesterday that there were no difficulties of any moment. I presume that she will, ultimately, find some way to cut the Gordian knot; and I can not but sincerely wish that you may have availed yourselves of the pretense Spain has given you to take possession. It will be best to treat with the subject in our hands; but, at all events, tell me what to do if they should go into the hands of. France; and fix the sum you are willing to give in case they should listen anew to my proposition; for as to Bernadotte doing anything with you I have no great faith. I pray you again to give me some instructions, for I may be acting contrary to your intentions; and I should be very sorry to do anything that you may find it proper to disavow. I am not satisfied, from examining my instructions and commission, that I am empowered to do anything but the common routine of business. As I did not receive this till I was going off I had no opportunity of objecting to them. I find that I have no precise diplomatic character, not even an envoy ordinary or extraordinary, though it had been usual for the United States to grant this latter grade to gentlemen of less standing than myself. But this by the bye, which I should not have mentioned if I did not find that it is not quite so agreeable here, as Bernadotte is a man of high rank, and would have wished, like his brother Generals, to have gone out with a more elevated rank, but which they can not give while the United States only retain a Minister Plenipotentiary here. It is proper that I should say a few words |