A Wilderness So Immense
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9. Lokke, “Leclerc Instructions,” 89; Tobias Lear to James Madison, February 12, 1802, Madison Tapers: State, 1: 463.
10. Ros, Night of Fire, 162; C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (2d ed., New York, 1963), 284–88; Thomas O. Ott, The Haitian Revolution, 1789–1804 (Knoxville, 1973).
11. Tobias Lear to James Madison, February 28, 1802 (Madison Papers: State, 2: 499–524), provides a day-by-day account of the arrival of Leclerc’s expedition based on Lear’s diary.
12. Ibid., 502–4.
13. Ibid., 504–6.
14. Lokke, “Leclerc Instructions,” 92–93, 98.
15. Ibid., 94–95, 98.
16. Ibid., 95–98; J. Christopher Herold, The Mind of Napoleon (New York, 1955), 189; see also Napoleon’s notes for a draft decree, April 27, 1802, in which his euphemisms for reinstituting slavery were “police regulations which will assign [unpropertied blacks] to landed proprietors as agricultural laborers … to prevent vagrancy and insubordination,” and “laws and regulations to which the blacks were subject in 1789 shall remain in force”; ibid., 187–88.
17. James, Black Jacobins, 317–18.
18. Ibid., 323–24.
19. Ibid., 325–29.
20. Ibid., 333–35, 362–65; Ros, Night of Fire, 203–12.
21. James, Black Jacobins, 334.
22. Leclerc to Napoleon, August 6 and August 9, 1802, in James, Black Jacobins, 343–45; Ros, Night of Fire, 203.
23. Leclerc to the minister of marine, Denis Decrès, August 25, 1802, in James, Black Jacobins, 346; Lester D. Langley, The Americas in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1850 (New Haven, 1996), 133.
24. James, Black Jacobins, 354–55.
25. Ibid., 355; Langley, Americas in the Age of Revolution, 131–35.
26. James, Black Jacobins, 360. Ros (Night of Fire, 50) and others confuse the son, Donatien Marie Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau (1755–1813), and his father, Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725–1807); see Jean Edmund Weelen, Rochambeau: Father and Son: A Life of Maréchal de Rochambeau and the Journal of the Vicomte de Rochambeau (New York, 1936).
27. Ros, Night of Fire, 192–97; James, Black Jacobins, 360–62, 369.
28. David Patrick Geggus, “Slavery, War, and Revolution in the Greater Caribbean, 1789–1815,” in Gaspar and Geggus, eds., A Turbulent Time, 25.
29. David Humphreys to James Madison, March 23, 1801; Rufus King to James Madison, March 29, 1801; William Vans Murray to James Madison, May 7, 1801, Madison Papers: State, 1: 36, 55–56, 146 (emphasis in originals).
30. James Madison to Alexander Hamilton, May 26, to James Monroe, June 1, and to Charles Pinckney, June 9, 1801; Rufus King to James Madison, November 10, 1801, Madison Papers: State, 1: 228–29, 245, 274–75; 2: 254.
31. Rufus King to James Madison, Madison Papers: State, 1: 250–51.
32. Ronald D. Smith, “Napoleon and Louisiana: Failure of the Proposed Expedition to Occupy and Defend Louisiana, 1801–1803,” LH 12 (1971): 22, 26. Smith misdates Napoleon’s letter to Decrès; see Lyon, Louisiana in French Diplomacy, 131.
33. Smith, “Napoleon and Louisiana,” 28; Kukla, Laussat Papers, 7–8, 24.
34. Lyon, Louisiana in French Diplomacy, 134–35; Kukla, Laussat Papers, 59; “Secret Instructions for the Captain-General of Louisiana,” November 26, 1802, in Robertson, Louisiana, 369, 371.
35. Smith, “Napoleon and Louisiana,” 31–40; Lyon, Louisiana in French Diplomacy, 137–44; Pierre Clement Laussat, Memoirs of My Life, trans. Sister Agnes-Josephine Pastwa, ed. Robert D. Bush (New Orleans, 1978), 3–4, 114–15; Kukla, Laussat Papers, 164. Delayed from December 1 to January 10 while waiting the arrival of the Surveillant into the natural harbor of He d’Aix, Laussat identified his city of departure variously as the seaport of La Rochelle and the fortified city of Rochefort, twenty miles to the south.
36. Rufus King to James Madison, October 31, 1801, Madison Papers: State, 2: 214.
37. Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism (New York, 1993), 510, 643–90; Alexander DeConde, The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797–1801 (New York, 1966); Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address, quoted in Walter LaFeber, “Jefferson and American Foreign Policy,” in Peter S. Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (Charlottesville, 1993), 375.
38. Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, June 21, 1797, quoted in LaFeber, “Jefferson and American Foreign Policy,” 375; George Dangerfield, Chancellor Robert R Livingston of New York, 1746—1813 (New York, 1960), 304.
39. Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, April 25, 1802, Dumas Malone, ed., Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, 1798–1817 (Boston and New York, 1930), 46–48.
40. Ibid., 47–49, 52, 67.
41. Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, April 18, 1802, State Papers and Correspondence, 15–16.
42. Ibid., 16–17.
43. ibid., 17.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid., 17–18.
47. Ibid., 18.
48. Du Pont to Jefferson, April 30, May 12, 1802, Correspondence, 60, 63.
49. Du Pont to Jefferson, May 12, October 4, 1802, Correspondence, 63, 69–70.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: SELLING A SHIP
1. George Cabot to Rufus King, July 1, 1803; Henry Cabot Lodge, ed., Life and Letters of George Cabot (Boston, 1878), 331.
2. The Literary Magazine and American Register 2, no. 13 (September 1804): 484.
3. George Dangerfield, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York, 1746—1813 (New York, 1960), 7–15.
4. Ibid., 44–48.
5. Robert R. Livingston, “Thoughts on the … Election of 1792,” and letter of “Aristides,” New York Journal, April 4, 1792, quoted in Dangerfield, Livingston, 253, 260.
6. Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, December 14, 1800, and Louis André Pichón to Robert R. Livingston, April 2, 1801, quoted in Danger-field, Livingston, 301, 305.
7. Dangerfield, Livingston, 50, 125, 188, 309.
8. Ibid., 309–11.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., 331–36; Livingston to Madison, December 13, 1801, Madison Papers: State, 2: 309.
11. Livingston to Madison, May 20, 1802, ibid., 232. The text of Livingston’s “Whether it will be advantageous to France to take possession of Louisiana?” is printed in State Papers and Correspondence, 36–50.
12. Livingston, “Whether it will be advantageous to France to take possession of Louisiana?” 39, 45.
13. Ibid., 43–44.
14. Ibid., 46–47.
15. Robert R. Livingston to James Madison, August 10, 1802, Madison Papers: State, 3: 468.
16. Livingston to King, August 2, 1802, Edward Alexander Parsons, ed., Original Letters of Robert R. Livingston, 1801–1803 (New Orleans, 1953), 99; Livingston to Jefferson, October 28, 1802, State Papers and Correspondence, 59.
17. Dangerfield, Livingston, 341–43.
18. Ibid., 342.
19. Ibid., 345.
20. Ibid.
21. Livingston to Madison, August 16, 1802, Madison Papers: State, 3: 491–92.
22. Livingston, “Whether it will be advantageous to France to take possession of Louisiana?” 48, 49. The Spanish denied to Americans living on the Tombigbee River (now in Alabama) the right to trade through Mobile and forced them to trade through New Orleans subject to duties of 6 percent or more; Daniel Clark to James Madison, June 22, 1802; Madison Papers: State, 3: 331.
23. Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, April 18, 1802, State Papers and Correspondence, 17; Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, April 25, 1802, Dumas Malone, ed., Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, 1798–1817 (Boston and New York, 1930), 47; James Madison to Charles Pinckney September 25, 1801; Madison Papers: State, 2: 131.
24. James Madison to Robert R. Livingston, January 18, 1
803; Madison Papers: State, 4: 259; Robert R. Livingston to Thomas Jefferson, October 28, 1802, State Papers and Correspondence, 59; Dangerfield, Livingston, 342. In a massive biography that ably portrays James Monroe’s perceptions of events he had not witnessed, Harry Ammon wrote that “it is quite probable that this offer, though it was rejected at the time, may have given currency to the idea that the United States might be willing to take all Louisiana”; Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (Charlottesville, 1971), 218.
25. Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, April 18, 1802, State Papers and Correspondence, 16.
26. Jon Kukla, ed., A Guide to the Papers of Pierre Clement Laussat, Napoleon’s Prefect for the Colony of Louisiana, and of General Claude Perrin Victor (New Orleans, 1993), 28. Morales’s proclamation is printed in State Papers and Correspondence, 54–55. Alexander DeConde and others mistakenly date Morales’s proclamation to October 18, the date of two letters informing James Madison of the proclamation; DeConde, This Affair of Louisiana (New York, 1976), 119; William E. Hulings to James Madison, October 18, 1802, Madison Papers: State, 4: 30; William C. C. Claiborne to James Madison, October 18, 1802, State Papers and Correspondence, 55. The editors of Madison’s papers date their abstract of Claiborne’s letter to October 29; Madison Papers: State, 4: 67.
27. Jack D. L. Holmes, “Dramatis Personae in Spanish Louisiana,” Louisiana Studies 6 (1967): 155–61; Holmes, Gayoso: The Life of a Spanish Governor in the Mississippi Valley, 1789–1799 (Baton Rouge, 1965), 218–22. “Roscoe R. Hill’s catalogue of one section in the Archives of the Indies,” Holmes noted, “devotes five columns just listing the bundles containing materials on the controversial Morales”; “Dramatis Personae,” 161.
28. Pinckney’s Treaty, Article 22; Daniel Clark to James Madison, March 8, 1803, Madison Papers: State, 4: 401.
29. Guardian of Freedom (Frankfort, Ky), November 3, 10, December 1, 8, 1802; Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe, Ohio), December 18, 1802; microfilm, Library of Virginia, Richmond.
30. Guardian of Freedom, December 8, 1802; Scioto Gazette, December 18, 1802.
31. Guardian of Freedom, December 1, 1802; Daniel Clark to James Madison, March 8, 1803, Madison Papers: State, 4: 401–2.
32. James Madison to Charles Pinckney November 27, 1802; Carlos Martinez Yrujo to James Madison, November 27, 1802, Madison Papers: State, 4: 146–49; Guardian of Freedom, February 2, 1803.
33. Madison to Pinckney, November 27, 1802, Madison Papers: State, 4: 147; Wilkinson to Brown, October 28, 1802, quoted in Stuart Seely Sprague, “Jefferson, Kentucky and the Closing of the Port of New Orleans, 1802–1803,” Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 70 (1972): 312; James Morrison to Wilson Cary Nicholas [1802], ibid.; Barr to Breckinridge, January 4, 1803; ibid., 315. Charge d’affaires Pichón reported the secretary of state’s warning in a letter to Talleyrand dated November 28, 1802; Madison Papers: State, xxvi.
34. John Stratton to John Cropper, January 10, 1803, John Cropper Papers, Mssic8835a, 276–83, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond; letter from Natchez, January 20, 1803, Western Spy and Hamilton Gazette (Cincinnati), February 23, 1803, quoted in Sprague, “Kentucky and the Closing of the Port,” 314.
35. Edward Channing, History of the United States (New York, 1926), 4: 326–27; E. Wilson Lyon, “The Closing of the Port of New Orleans,” AHR 37 (1931–1932): 280–83; “A Report to the King on the Closing of New Orleans,” ibid., 284–89; A. P. Whitaker, “France and the American Deposit at New Orleans,” HAHR 11 (1931): 485–502.
36. Lyon, “Closing of the Port,” 282; “Secret Instructions for the Captain-General of Louisiana,” November 26, 1802, in Robertson, Louisiana, 366; Whitaker, “France and the American Deposit,” 498–501.
37. E. Wilson Lyon, Louisiana in French Diplomacy, 1759–1804 (Norman, Okla., 1934), 194; DeConde, This Affair of Louisiana, 151.
38. Ibid., 153; Alan Schom, Napoleon Bonaparte (New York, 1997), 308–32.
39. Robert Livingston to President Jefferson, March 12, 1803, State Papers and Correspondence, 145; Livingston to Rufus King, March 15, 1803, Original Letters of Robert R. Livingston, 106; Henry Adams, History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1889); my citations are to the Library of America edition (New York, 1986), 314.
40. Carl Ludwig Lokke, “Secret Negotiations to Maintain the Peace of Amiens,” AHR (1943–1944): 57–58.
41. Ibid., 58; John J. McCusker, How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (Worcester, Mass., 1992), 321, 343, 350.
42. Dialogue is quoted from Adams, History, 324–28, and DeConde, This Affair of Louisiana, 165–66; both accounts are based upon Lucien Bonaparte’s memoirs of the conversation.
43. W. F. Jackson Knight, trans., The Aeneid (London, 1956), 31; Danger-field, Livingston, 362.
44. Adams, History, 328; Francois Barbé-Marbois, The History of Louisiana; Particularly of the Cession of That Colony to the United States of America (Philadelphia, 1830; rpt., Baton Rouge, 1977), 263.
45. Schom, Napoleon Bonaparte, 310–13.
46. E. Wilson Lyon, The Man Who Sold Louisiana: The Career of François Barbé-Marbois (Norman, Okla., 1942), 3–71; William Peden, ed., Notes on the State of Virginia (Chapel Hill, 1954), xi-xv.
47. Lyon, Man Who Sold Louisiana, 72–117.
48. Barbé-Marbois, History of Louisiana, 263–64.
49. Ibid., 264.
50. Ibid., 264–66.
51. Ibid., 270–72.
52. Ibid., 274–75.
53. Ibid., 276.
54. Ibid.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF RUE TRUDON
1. Robert R. Livingston to Rufus King, May 11, 1803, Edward Alexander Parsons, ed., Original Letters of Robert R. Livingston, 1801–1803 (New Orleans, 1953), 123–24.
2. Alexander Hamilton to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney December 29, 1802, in Joanne B. Freeman, ed., Alexander Hamilton: Writings (New York, 2001), 994; [Douglass Adair], “Hamilton on the Louisiana Purchase: A Newly Identified Editorial from the New-York Evening Post,” WMQ 3d ser, 12 (1955): 269–71; Adair, Fame and the Founding Fathers, ed. Trevor Colbourn (New York, 1974), 260–85.
3. New-York Evening Post, February 8, 1803, Harold C. Syrett, ed., Papers of Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1979), 26: 83.
4. Ibid. Among the works of modern historians, I have found only one suggestion that conquest might have been preferable to purchase: “A military expedition,” Forrest McDonald contends, “would have been far cheaper”; Alexander Hamilton: A Biography (New York, 1979), 358.
5. Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, January 13, 1803, Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York, 1984), 1111.
6. Thomas Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis, February 23, 1803; Carlos Martínez de Yrujo to Pedro Cevallos, December 2, 1802; Donald Jackson, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents, 1783–1854 (2d ed., Urbana, 111., 1978), 2–6 and passim.
7. Jefferson’s Message to Congress, January 18, 1803; ibid., 10–13 and passim; Stephen A. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (New York, 1996); Jerome O. Steffen, William Clark: Jeffersonian Man on the Frontier (Norman, Okla., 1977).
8. William Coleman in the New-York Evening Post, February 8, 1803, quoted in Dumas Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805(Boston, 1970), 277; Pichón to Talleyrand, December 22, 1803, quoted in Henry Adams, History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1889; Library of America edition, New York, 1986), 289.
9. Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, January 10, 1803, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., Works of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1905), 9: 416–17.
10. Ibid.
11. Adams, History, 291–92; Malone, Jefferson the President: First Term, 270–71; Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (Charlottes
ville, 1971), 204.
12. David Holmes to Senator James Allen, January 12, 1803, Mss2 AL 548 b 2, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond; Howard P. Hildreth, “David Holmes,” Virginia Cavalcade 16 (Spring 1967): 38–40.
13. Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, 2001), 174–76; Stuart Gerry Brown, ed., The Autobiography of James Monroe (Syracuse, 1959), 156.
14. Thomas Jefferson to Robert R. Livingston, April 18, 1802, State Papers and Correspondence, 16–17.
15. Jefferson to Randolph, December 1, 1803, Jefferson Papers, 1st ser, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., quoted in Jon Kukla, “Order and Chaos in Early America: Political and Social Stability in Pre-Restoration Virginia,” AHR 90(1985):298.
16. James Monroe to Thomas Monteagle Bailey [i.e., Bayly], March 6, 1803, Mss2 M7576 a 18, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond; Autobiography of James Monroe, 154–56. Ammon follows Monroe’s letter of April 9 in describing the voyage as “29 days from the Hook,” but the entire voyage took thirty-one days; Ammon, Monroe, 207; James Monroe to James Madison, April 9, 1803, Madison Papers: State, 4: 497.
17. Ammon, Monroe, 207; Autobiography of James Monroe, 154–56. The first significant message conveyed by Chappe’s optical telegraph was of a French victory against Austria on November 30, 1794.
18. Robert Livingston to James Monroe, April 10, 1803, quoted in Danger-field, Livingston, 358. The quotation from this letter in Ammon, Monroe, 208, has six transcription errors.