Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/179

Rh and Spain have been incurring expense for improve ments in Louisiana, for which its trade has never indemnified them. Large sums, which will never be returned to the treasury, have been lent to companies and to agriculturalists. The price of all these things is justly due to us. If I should regulate my terms according to the value of these vast regions to the United States, the indemnity would have no limits. I will be moderate, in consideration of the necessity in which I am of making a sale. But keep this to yourself. I want fifty millions, and for less than that sum I will not treat. I would rather make a desperate attempt to keep these fine countries. Tomorrow you shall have full power. &quot; * * * &quot;Perhaps it will also be objected to me that the Americans may be found too powerful for Europe in two or three centuries; but my foresight does not embrace such remote fears. Besides, we may hereafter expect rivalries among the members of the Union. The confederations that are called perpetual only last till one of the contracting parties finds it to his interest to break them, and it is to prevent the danger to which the colonial power of England exposes us that I would provide a remedy. &quot; * * * &quot;Mr. Monroe is on the point of arriving. * * * Neither this minister nor his colleague is prepared for a decision which goes infinitely beyond anything they are about to ask of us. Begin by making the overture without any subterfuge. You will acquaint me day by day and hour by hour of your progress. * * * Observe the greatest secrecy, and recommend it to the American ministers.&quot;

April nth, the day of the conversation between Napoleon and Marbois, Talleyrand dropped a hint to Mr. Livingston by inquiring whether the United States desired the whole of Louisiana, and what price they were willing to pay for it. Mr. Livingston says (Letter of Livingston to Madison, Annals of Congress, 1802-3, p. 1126): &quot;I told him no; that our wishes extended only to New Orleans and the Floridas; that the policy of