of James Monroe as Minister Extraordinary, set directly over his head, no wonder that to a man of such spirit it became an occasion of wrath. As the reader knows, Jefferson, in appointing Monroe, had especially in view the quieting of excitement in the West and South over the closing of the Mississippi by Morales; to name a popular man for a special mission, it was thought, would have a good effect, and, as we have seen, it proved to be an admirable stroke of policy. But Livingston, three thousand miles distant, receiving news only after months of delay, could not know all this, and it is natural that in his correspondence at this time there should be touches of grief and temper. "I can not but wish, sir, that my fellow citizens should not be led to believe from Mr. Monroe's appointment that I had been negligent of their interests, or too delicate on any of the great points entrusted to my care. I trust that a communication of my notes to some of them would show that I had gone as far as possible for me to go, and perhaps further than my instructions would justify."

*March 18th.

But Livingston's long labor was about to end, the dénouement being now at hand of the knot which had been so sorely perplexing. On the 11th of April Talleyrand startled the envoy by the inquiry whether the United States would buy the whole of Louisiana, and what price it would be willing to pay. What lay back of the changed attitude of the minister the narrative of Lucien as to the determination which the First Consul had at this time reached, makes sufficiently plain. Livingston declares he assured Talleyrand "that we were not disposed to trifle; that the times were critical, and though I did not know what instructions Mr. Monroe might bring, I was perfectly satisfied they would require a precise and prompt notice; that I was very fearful, from the little progress I had made, that my Government would consider me as a very indolent negotiator. He laughed, and told me that he would give me a certificate that I was the most importunate he had met with."

With this little touch of good naturerare enough, no doubt, in this arch schemerTalleyrand steps off the scene, so far as our

story is concerned. Now that a new policy was to be followed, Napoleon had a helper at hand whom he thought more trustworthy. Livingston, too, retires from the first place, for Monroe had arrived charged with the latest purposes of the administration. Livingston's work had been well and faithfully done, and no chapter of our diplomatic history is more memorable and interesting than the long struggle which preceded the Louisiana settlement. His work as a man of affairs was not less important than as a statesman. Returning to America, after an interval, he became the main support of Robert Fulton in the application of steam to locomotion, one of the most momentous of human inventions. His life, full of illustrious service, ended in 1813.