University of Virginia Library

4859. LOUISIANA, Taking possession of.—[continued].

I think it possible that
Spain, recollecting our former eagerness for
the island of New Orleans, may imagine she
can, by a free delivery of that, redeem the
residue of Louisiana; and that she may withhold
the peaceable cession of it. In that case
no doubt force must be used.—
To James Madison. Ford ed., viii, 263.
(M. Sep. 1803)