“I have just read the project of Citizen Fulton, engineer, which you have sent me much too late,” he wrote, “since it is one that may change the face of the world. Be that as it may, I desire that you immediately confide its examination to a commission of members chosen by you among the different classes of the Institute. There it is that learned Europe would seek for judges to resolve the question under consideration. A great truth, a physical, palpable truth, is before my eyes. It will be for these gentlemen to try and seize it and see it. As soon as their report is made, it will be sent to you, and you will forward it to me. Try and let the whole be determined within eight days, as I am impatient.” He had his eye on every point of the earth where he might be weak, or where he might weaken his enemy. He took possession of Hanover. The Irish were promised aid in their efforts for freedom. “Provided that twenty thousand united Irishmen join the French army on its landing,” France is to give them in return twenty-five thousand men, forty thousand muskets, with artillery and ammunition, and a promise that the French government will not make peace with England until the independence of Ireland has been proclaimed. An attack on India was planned, his hope being that the princes of India would welcome an invader who would aid them in throwing off the English yoke. To strengthen himself in the Orient, he sought by letters and envoys to win the confidence, as well as to inspire the awe, of the rulers of Turkey and Persia. The sale of Louisiana to the United States dates from this time. This transfer, of such tremendous importance to us, was made by Napoleon purely for the sake of hurting England. France had been in possession of Louisiana but three years. She had obtained it from Spain only on the condition that it should “at no time, under no pretext, and in no manner, be alienated or ceded to any other power.” The formal stipulation of the treaties forbade its sale. But Napoleon was not of a nature to regard a treaty, if the interest of the moment demanded it to be broken. To sell Louisiana now would remove a weak spot from France, upon which England would surely fall in the war. More, it would put a great territory, which he could not control, into the hands of a country which, he believed, would some day be a serious hindrance to English ambition. He sold the colony for the same reason that former French governments had helped the United States in her struggles for independence—to cripple England. It would help the United States, but it would hurt England. That was enough; and with characteristic eagerness he hurried through the negotiations. “I have just given England a maritime rival which, sooner or later, will humble her pride,” he said exultingly, when the convention was signed. The sale brought him twelve million dollars, and the United States assumed the French spoliation claims.