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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The Treaty of Retrocession, 1800 THE republic of France had scarcely become firmly established before the directory began to consider the question of securing the retrocession of Louisiana from Spain. The confidence with which France pursued this object indicates that owing to some secret understanding at the date of the cession of Louisiana to Spain in 1763, or at some subsequent date, the latter was under obligations to retrocede the province to the French government, either upon demand, or upon the fulfillment of certain conditions or agreements. As early as 1794 the French ambassador to the court of Spain, Citizen Perignon, was instructed to sound that government in regard to the retrocession of Louisiana; and it was announced in the ambassador's dispatches that Spain seemed to acquiesce in the demand, in order to secure for the Duke of Parma, as France proposed, an enlargement of his states in Italy. It should be particularly noted that France demanded at this time West Florida also, taking the position that, under Spain, Louisiana embraced West Florida as it did previous to 1763 under France. But the French government could not yet deliver the territory in Italy desired, therefore negotiations were interrupted and delayed. In 1797, Delacroix, the French minister on exterior relations, wrote to General Bonaparte that This treaty ought to have as basis the cession of Louisiana and of West Florida to the republic, upon the supposition that events permit the French government to procure for the Duke of Parma an augmentation of territory, such as Romagna or any other part.J Accordingly, full powers were sent to Mr. Perignon to conclude the treaty on this basis; but Spain was not satisfied with the assurance that France could deliver the desired territory in Ita..