Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/87

70 insist upon this as a part of your right, and to take possession at all events to the River Perdido. I pledge myself that your right is good."

The reasoning on which he rested this change of opinion was in substance the following: France had, in early days, owned nearly all the North American continent, and her province of Louisiana had then included Ohio and the watercourses between the Lakes and the Gulf, as well as West Florida, or a part of it. This possession lasted until the treaty of peace, Nov. 3, 1762, when France ceded to England not only Canada, but also Florida and all other possessions east of the Mississippi, except the Island of New Orleans. Then West Florida by treaty first received its modern boundary at the Iberville. On the same day France further ceded to Spain the Island of New Orleans and all Louisiana west of the Mississippi. Not a foot of the vast French possessions on the continent of North America remained in the hands of the King of France; they were divided between England and Spain.

The retrocession of 1800 was made on the understanding that it referred to this cession of 1762. The province of Louisiana which had been ceded was retro-ceded, with its treaty-boundary at the Iberville. Livingston knew that the understanding between France and Spain was complete; yet on examination he found that it had not been expressed in words so clearly but that these words could be made to bear a different meaning. Louisiana was retroceded, he