Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/446

1803. obligation of taking the measures most likely not only to re-establish our present rights, but to promote arrangements by which they may be enlarged and more effectually secured." According to this view, the impulse of Congress and the Press alone made the Executive feel its obligation.  For more than a year the Executive had known the danger and had done nothing; being obliged to do something, its first object was to avoid doing too much.

Accordingly, General Smith of Maryland, Jan. 11, 1803, carried the House again into secret session, and moved to appropriate two million dollars "to defray any expenses which may be incurred in relation to the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations." The next day a committee reported, through Joseph Nicholson, in favor of appropriating the money, with a view to purchasing West Florida and New Orleans. The Report argued that there was no alternative between purchase and war. Meanwhile, January 11, the President sent to the Senate the name of James Monroe as minister extraordinary to France and Spain to help Livingston and Pinckney in "enlarging and more effectually securing our rights and interests in the river Mississippi and in the territories eastward thereof."

The nomination was approved by the Senate January 13; and without losing a moment, Jefferson