From the time of Berthier’s treaty of retrocession, Bonaparte had tried to induce the King of Spain to part with the Floridas; but Charles IV. refused to talk of another bargain. In vain Bonaparte wrote to the young King of Etruria, offering to give him Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, if Don Carlos would add Florida to Louisiana.[146] When at length the King signed at Barcelona, October 15, the order which delivered Louisiana to France, Bonaparte pressed more earnestly than ever for the Floridas. Talleyrand made a report on the subject, dissuading him from acquiring more than West Florida.[147] “West Florida,” he wrote, “suffices for the desired enlargement of Louisiana; it completes the retrocession of the French colony, such as it was given to Spain; it carries the eastern boundary back to the river Appalachicola; it gives us the port of Pensacola, and a population which forms more than half that of the two Floridas. By leaving East Florida to Spain we much diminish the difficulties of our relative position in regard to the United States,--difficulties little felt to-day, but which some day may become of the gravest importance.” Bonaparte did not follow this advice. On the death of the Duke of Parma he wrote with his own hand to the King of Spain, offering the old family estate of Parma as a gift for the King of Tuscany, in return for which France was to receive the Floridas.[148] The Queen, as before, favored the exchange, and all her influence was exerted to effect it; but Godoy was obstinate in evading or declining the offer, and after months of diplomatic effort Bonaparte received at last, toward the end of January, 1803, a despatch from General Beurnonville, his new representative at Madrid, announcing that the Prince of Peace, with the aid of the British Minister John Hookham Frere, had succeeded in defeating the scheme.[149] “The Prince told me that the British Minister had declared to him, in the name of his Government, that his Britannic Majesty, being informed of the projects of exchange which existed between France and Spain, could never consent that the two Floridas should become an acquisition of the Republic; that the United States of America were in this respect of one mind with the Court of London; and that Russia equally objected to France disposing of the estates of Parma in favor of Spain, since the Emperor Alexander intended to have them granted as indemnity to the King of Sardinia. In imparting to me this proceeding of the British Minister, the Prince had a satisfied air, which showed how much he wished that the exchange, almost agreed upon and so warmly desired by the Queen, may not take place.”