[3] STATE OF CHRONIC IRRITATION. Increased by Spain's dilatory action in settling our southern boundary, her refusal to give up Natchez, etc., as provided for under the treaty of 1795. In view of this attitude, the United States concentrated troops on the Mississippi with the intention of seizing New Orleans. England stood ready to do the same thing in case of a rupture with Spain. [4] LIVINGSTON, ROBERT R., one of the signers of the "Declaration," deserves the name of the author of the Louisiana purchase. [5] TREATY SIGNED April 30, 1803; sent to the United States May 13; ratified Oct. 21, seven senators voting against it on the ground that the question should be first submitted to the whole people. A GLANCE AT OUR PURCHASE. Hitherto Louisiana has played the part of a football in European politics. The curtain is now to rise upon a far different scene. For fifteen millions the United States obtained more territory than the original thirteen had started out with. As we have shown in a previous chapter, our people had more than enough land already, and few men were wise enough, in that day, to forecast our national greatness in the future; but at last the Mississippi in all its course was ours, and the one question of highest moment to the West was settled in our favor,—settled definitely and forever. With what actual materials for progress, in nation-building, did the United States set up her rule over Louisiana? The answer will show what the French and Spaniards had done in two centuries or more of intermittent effort. [Illustration: A LOUISIANA SUGAR PLANTATION.] Two rather large towns, twelve hundred miles apart, held about one-third its whole population, and controlled all its trade. The first, New Orleans, was the commercial port for the Mississippi Valley and its products. The second, St. Louis, was a fur-trading post with its chief outlet in Canada. One had a mixed population of from eight thousand to ten thousand, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Americans and blacks; the other did not have more than twelve hundred people, all told, many of whom were boatmen, who passed much of their lives afloat on the rivers or domesticated among roving tribes. In both, the French were most numerous, but taking all Louisiana together, there were nearly, if not quite, as many slaves as white people, although, as compared with the Indians then occupying this vast territory, the whites were only a handful. [Illustration: FRENCH SETTLEMENTS: GERM OF ST. LOUIS.]