Louisiana and Aaron Burr 315 



sidering the question of breach of faith or loss of 

 honor, if he could gain any advantage by sacrificing 

 either. Livingston was astonished to find that Na- 

 poleon had suddenly changed front, and that there 

 was every prospect of gaining what for months had 

 seemed impossible. For some time there was hag- 

 gling over the terms. Napoleon at first demanded 

 an exorbitant sum; but having once made up his 

 mind to part with Louisiana his impatient disposi- 

 tion made him anxious to conclude the bargain. 

 He rapidly abated his demands, and the cession 

 was finally made for fifteen millions of dollars. 



The treaty was signed in May, 1803. The defini- 

 tion of the exact boundaries of the ceded territory 

 was purposely left very loose by Napoleon. On the 

 East, the Spanish Government of the Floridas still 

 kept possession of what are now several parishes 

 in the State of Louisiana. In the far West the 

 boundary lines which divided upper Louisiana from 

 the possessions of Britain on the North and of Spain 

 on the South led through a wilderness where no 

 white man had ever trod, and they were of course 

 unmapped, and only vaguely guessed at. 



There was one singular feature of this bargain, 

 which showed, as nothing else could have shown, 

 how little American diplomacy had to do with ob- 

 taining Louisiana, and how impossible it was for 

 any European power, even the greatest, to hold the 

 territory in the face of the steady westward growth 

 of the American people. Napoleon forced Liv- 

 ingston and Monroe to become the reluctant pur- 



