Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/97

Rh landing where he already had possession, and could meet with no opposition.

The United States was in an uproar. The more so that they did not know what to expect. For while the soldier prepared to strike, he employed a professional liar, an inscrutable and double-faced poker player named Talleyrand, to temporize and conceal his intentions. This gentleman, who held the position of Minister for Foreign Affairs, acted accordingly.

At the time this scheme was concocted, New Orleans, including both banks of the Mississippi for some miles, as well as the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to Florida, and the entire country west of the river, belonged to Spain. This was in the year 1800. Although it belonged to Spain without a question, the hardy frontiersmen west of the Blue Ridge had determined to seize it, willy-nilly, and the government at Washington, albeit an ultra-democratic and pacific administration, was obliged to take the same view. They were straining every nerve to buy New Orleans, or make some