Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/267



seud his veterans to New Orleans; for England, mistress of the seas, might cap- ture his men, and ships atloat and wrest New Orleans from Prance. The great Napoleon dropped his scheme as quickly as he formed it ; and as he badly needed money for other schemes, he turned around and ottered Louisiana for sale to the American minister. "Never in the foi'tuncs of mankind," says John Quiney Adams, "was there a more sudden, complete and pro- pitious turn in the tide of events than this change in the purposes of Napoleon proved to the administration of President Jefferson." So convinced was Liv- ingston of the bad faith of France at that time,- that when Monroe reached Paris, Livingston declared that nothing but force would do; "We must seize New Orleans by military force, and negotiate afterwards." What then was his surprise and astonishment when he proposed to purchase the trading post of New Orleans, to find the French minister offering to sell him the vast terri- tory of Louisiana, New Orleans, the great rivers and everything else that France claimed in America. The whole tone of France was changed at once, and the bargaining for an empire of land went merrily as a marriage bell. Fif- teen million dollars was the price agreed upon for Louisiana territory; the largest real estate transaction in the world from the beginning of the human race. It conveyed all the lands in the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mis.souri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, three-fourths of Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, half of Colorado, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, Utah, half of Minnesota and most of Montana ; five hundred and sixty-five million acres at a price of about one dollar and a half per square mile of land. Napoleon w^as greatly pleased with the sale he had made, and said to the American minister. "This accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the United States; and I have given to England a maritime rival that will sooner or later humble her pride." And the most curious thing in the whole transaction was that President Jeffei-son borrowed the money from English bankers to pay France, when it was perfectly plain that Napoleon would use the whole sum fighting England, taking a most outrageous advantage of the stupidity of the English ministiy. On the 20th of December following formal possession of the Province of Louisiana, was taken by the American Commissioners, Wm. C. Claiborne and General James Wilkinson, and the tri-eolored fiag was pulled down to wave no more forever over American soil.

President Jefferson was now free to pursue his life long desire to know what was in the Far West. He had now cleared away all obstacles; he had added to the national domain territory enough to make thirteen more great states; he had opened the way now to find out what wa.s in the far-off Oregon country. Oregon had been in his mind ever since he had started Ledyard across Asia to reach and explore it. And that is the reason this history of the Louisiana purchase is pertinent to the history of Oregon. Without Louisiana, the United States could never reach Oregon and without Oregon, there would be no American port on the Pacific Ocean.

Here we connect George Washington and Thomas Jeft'er.son with Oregon. While Washington was fighting the British in the Atlantic coast colonies, he did not neglect the rear ; but kept George Rogers Clark in the Ohio valley to hold the Indians in check and watch the British who were in actual possession of the great Valley. Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry as Governor of Virginia and held