1803.] LOUISIANA CEDED TO FRANCE, AND TO THE U. STATES. 279 



the River Iberville, and thence along the middle of the Iberville, 

 and the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, to the sea." 



By these treaties, the eastern boundary of Louisiana was defini- 

 tively fixed, from the Mexican Gulf to the head of the Missis- 

 sippi ; and Great Britain, at the same time, formally renounced all 

 her claims to the territories west of that river. With regard to 

 the western limits of Louisiana, no settlement of boundaries was 

 necessary ; as the territory thus acquired by Spain would join 

 other territories, of which she also claimed possession. 



The transfer of Louisiana by France to Spain was not officially 

 promulgated until 1765 ; nor did the Spaniards obtain possession 

 of the country until 1769, from which period they occupied it 

 continually, until the 30th of November, 1803. In the mean 

 time, Louisiana twice changed its masters. On the 1st of 

 October, 1800, a treaty was concluded between the French re- 

 public and the king of Spain, by which the former party en- 

 gaged to enlarge the dominions of the duke of Parma, a prince 

 of the royal family of Spain, by adding to them some other 

 territories in Italy ; and his Catholic majesty, by the third article, 

 "engaged, on his part, to retrocede to the French republic, six 

 months after the full and entire execution of the above-mentioned 

 conditions and stipulations relative to the duke of Parma, the 

 colony or 'province of Louisiana, with the same extent which it 

 now has in the hands of Spain, and which it had when France 

 possessed it, and such as it should be, according to the treaties 

 subsequently made between Spain and other states." * The conditions 

 relative to the duke of Parma having been fulfilled by France, 

 Louisiana became the property of that republic ; between which 

 and the United States of America a treaty was concluded, on 

 the 30th of April, 1803, wherein, after reciting the third article 

 of the treaty of 1800, the territory thus retroceded to France 

 was " ceded to the United States, in the name of the French 

 republic, forever, and in full sovereignty, with all its rights and 

 appurtenances, as fully, and in the same manner, as they have been 

 acquired by the French republic, in virtue of the above-mentioned 

 treaty with his Catholic majesty." 



* The treaty of October 1st, 1800, was never made public until 1820, when 

 it appeared, for the first time, in the French and the Spanish languages, in the 

 Memoir published at Madrid by the Chevalier de Onis, formerly minister plenipo- 

 tentiary of Spain in the United States, in defence of his conduct, in concluding 

 the treaty by which Florida became the property of the American Union. 



