314 The Winning of the West 



who were bitterly anti-federalist in sympathy, he 

 was able to prevent any violent action on their part 

 until events rendered this violence unnecessary. At 

 the same time, Jefferson himself never for a mo- 

 ment ceased to feel the strong pressure of Southern 

 and Western public sentiment; and so he continued 

 resolute in his purpose to obtain Louisiana. 



It was no argument of Jefferson's or of the Ameri- 

 can diplomats, but the inevitable trend of events 

 that finally brought about a change in Napoleon's 

 mind. The army he sent to Hayti wasted away by 

 disease and in combat with the blacks, and thereby 

 not only diminished the forces he intended to throw 

 into Louisiana, but also gave him a terrible object 

 lesson as to what the fate of these forces was cer- 

 tain ultimately to be. The attitude of England and 

 Austria grew steadily more hostile, and his most 

 trustworthy advisers impressed on Napoleon's mind 

 the steady growth of the Western-American com- 

 munities, and the implacable hostility with which 

 they were certain to regard any power that seized 

 or attempted to hold New Orleans. Napoleon could 

 not afford to hamper himself with the difficult de- 

 fence of a distant province, and to incur the hos- 

 tility of a new foe, at the very moment when he was 

 entering on another struggle with his old European 

 enemies. Moreover, he needed money in order to 

 carry on the struggle. To be sure he had promised 

 Spain not to turn over Louisiana to another power ; 

 but he was quite as incapable as any Spanish states- 

 man, or as Talleyrand himself, of so much as con- 



