Another Small Kingdom (35 page)

Postscript

O
n Saturday 30th April 1803, without a shot being fired (officially), Ambassador Robert Livingston and Special Envoy James Monroe signed the treaty by which America came into possession of the Louisiana Territories, a tract of land of some 828,000 square miles covering what is today fifteen US states and two Canadian provinces. The price was 60 million French francs or 11,250,000 US dollars, roughly 3 cents per acre. Announcing the Purchase, President Thomas Jefferson said:

We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our whole lives ... From this day the United States take their place among the powers of the first rank.

Spain immediately challenged the boundaries of the Territories and this dispute rumbled on until 1819 when both countries signed the Adams-Onis Treaty whereby the US acquired Florida and the boundary between the US and New Spain (from 1821, Mexico) was established.

Needless to say it didn't end there.

Henry Adams (1838–1918), whose grandfather and great-grandfather had both been US Presidents, described the Louisiana Purchase as trebly invalid, claiming that if the Territories were French, Napoleon had not the right to sell them without Government approval. If they were Spanish, the French couldn't sell them at all. And if Spain had first refusal of any sale under the Treaty whereby France had acquired them, the sale to America became worthless.

In his book
The Lies My Teacher Told Me
the sociologist and historian James Loewen (1942–) pointed out that all the US could buy from France was their claim to the Territories as the land actually belonged to the tribes who lived there.

And so it goes on, it never ends, it can't.

And the others?

The General, along with several other men of note, some few from inside the Government, retired into private life where two committed suicide, one died under ambiguous circumstances and three left the US and settled in Europe. The General died of natural causes on his plantation aged seventy-three. None left any words for posterity.

Cedric Bentley replaced the General as Comptroller of the Contingent Fund of Foreign Intercourse, effectively the head of the American Secret Service, answerable directly to the President. He appointed Jeremiah Jones as Deputy Comptroller.

Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1815 and exiled to St Helena where he died. Talleyrand survived to serve the restored French King, Louis XVIII, as Ambassador to the UK from 1830–34. He died on 17thMay 1838 and was buried near his castle, the Château de Valançay.

Jasper Trent continued in his role and Lord Melford continued in his service.

Molly O'Hara's whereabouts could not be established although Jasper Trent instituted enquiries.

Kitty Mullen stayed in Boston where she took domestic service.

Joseph Fouché died in exile in Trieste in 1820.