He also points out that France may by taking a certain course estrange the United States for ever and bind it closely to France’s great enemy. This particular address to Talleyrand is dated February 1, 1803, and may be found in the Annals of Congress, 1802-1803, at pages 1078 to 1083. I quote a sentence: “The critical moment has arrived which rivets the connexion of the United States to France, or binds a young and growing people for ages hereafter to her mortal and inveterate enemy.” After this, hints follow concerning the relative maritime power of France and Great Britain. Livingston suggests that if Great Britain invade Louisiana, who can oppose her? Once more he refers to Great Britain’s superior fleet. This interesting address concludes with the following exordium to France: “She will cheaply purchase the esteem of men and the favor of Heaven by the surrender of a distant wilderness, which can neither add to her wealth nor to her strength.” This, as you will perceive, is quite a pointed remark. Throughout the Louisiana diplomacy, and negotiations to which this diplomacy led, Livingston’s would seem to be the master American mind and prophetic vision. But I must keep to my jackstraws. On April 17, 1803, Bonaparte’s brother, Lucien, reports a conversation held with him by Bonaparte. What purposes, what oscillations, may have been going on deep in Bonaparte’s secret mind, no one can tell. We may guess that he did not relinquish his plan about Louisiana definitely for some time after the thought had dawned upon him that it would be better if he did relinquish it. But unless he was lying to his brother Lucien on April 17, 1803, we get no mere glimpse, but a perfectly clear sight of what he had come finally to think. It was certainly worth while, he said to Lucien, to sell when you could what you were certain to lose; “for the English... are aching for a chance to capture it.... Our navy, so inferior to our neighbor’s across the Channel, will always cause our colonies to be exposed to great risks.... As to the sea, my dear fellow, you must know that there we have to lower the flag.... The English navy is, and long will be, too dominant.” That was on April 17. On May 2, the Treaty of Cession was signed by the exultant Livingston. Bonaparte, instead of establishing an outpost of autocracy at New Orleans, sold to us not only the small piece of land which we had originally in mind, but the huge piece of land whose dimensions I have given above. We paid him fifteen millions for nearly a million square miles. The formal transfer was made on December 17 of that same year, 1803. There is my second jackstraw.