PURCHASE  OF  THB  TERRITORY  OF  LOUISIANA.                 5
[Extract.]
Mr. Madison, Secretary of State, to Charles Pinckney.
Department of State,
Washington, June 9, 1801.
On different occasions, since the commencement of the French Revo-
lution, opinions and reports have prevailed that some part of the
Spanish possessions, including New Orleans and the mouth of the
Mississippi, had been or was to be transferred to France. Of late,
information has been received through several channels, making it
probable that some arrangement for that purpose has been concerted.
Neither the extent of the cession, however, nor the consideration on
whioh it is made, is yet reduced to certainty and precision. The whole
subject will deserve and engage your early and vigilant inquiries, and
may require a very delicate and circumspect management. What the
motives of Spain in this transaction may be, is not so obvious. The
policy of France in it, so far, at least, as relates to the United States,
can not be mistaken. While she remained on the footing of confi-
dence and affection with the United States, which originated during
our Revolution and was strengthened during the early stages of her
own, it may be presumed that she adhered to the policy which, in the
treaty of 1778, renounced the acquisition of continental territory in
North America, and was more disposed to shun the collisions threat-
ened by possessions in that quarter, coterminous with ours, than to
pursue objects to which the commanding position at the mouth of the
Mis&issippi might be made subservient. Circumstances are not now
the same. Although the two countries are again brought together by
stipulations of amity and commerce, the confidence and cordiality
which formerly subsisted have had a deep wound from the occurrences
of late years.
Jealousies probably still remain, that the Atlantic States have a par-
tiality for Great Britain, which may, in future, throw their weight into
the scale of that rival. It is more than possible, also, that, under the
influence of those jealousies, and of the alarms which have at times
prevailed, of a projected operation for wresting the mouth of the
Mississippi into the hands of Great Britain, she may have concluded a
preoccupancy of it by herself to be a necessary safeguard against an
event from which that nation would derive the double advantage of
strengthening her hold on the United States, and of adding to her com-
merce a monopoly of the immense and fertile region communicating
with the sea through a single outlet. This view of the subject, which
suggests the difficulty which may be found in diverting France from
the object, points, at the same time, to the means that may most tend
to induce a voluntary relinquishment of it. She must infer, from our
conduct and our communications, that the Atlantic States are not dis-