Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/148

 more than 15 millions of dollars: it was, therefore, all important and imperiously necessary for the government of Spain, to get rid at once of this debt, to avoid the claims of the American government, which were accumulating from day to day, and which were so much the more prejudicial as that Republick, from the particular circumstances under which we were situated, might do justice to herself at will, and, under pretext of indemnification, take possession of those provinces of the monarchy on the continent of America, that would best suit her interests.

Another errour, of great and transcendent importance, was committed on the part of Spain, in the cession to Buonaparte, in the year 1800, of the province of Louisiana, in terms so ambiguous, so contradictory, and so unusual in diplomatick transactions, that the frontiers of the province were not marked out, nor was the stipulation even thought of, that France should not alienate it. Not till two years afterwards, and when it was already known that Buonaparte had it in contemplation to sell it to the United States, was this declaration solicited from France, and her ambassador made it by an official communication: but this did not prevent Buonaparte from selling it in 1803 to the United States, nor from compelling the king to disavow the formal protest, which the Marquis de Casa Irujo had submitted against the sale of the province, as made by