[246] Olney to Bayard, July 20, 1895. [247] Moore's "Digest of Int. Law," Vol. VI, pp. 368-604, especially Mr. Fish's Report on Relations with the Spanish-American Republics of July 14, 1870, pp. 429-431. [248] Foreign Relations, 1896, p. 254. [249] Foreign Relations, 1901, p. 193; 1903, p. 429. [250] Foreign Relations, 1903, pp. 419, 454; Moore, "Digest of Int. Law," Vol. VII. p. 140. [251] Moore, "Digest of Int. Law," Vol. VI, p. 590. [252] Thayer, "Life and Letters of John Hay," Vol. II, pp. 286-288. [253] Washington _Post_, May 28, 1916. [254] Venezuelan Arbitrations of 1903 (Sen. Doc. No. 316, Fifty-eighth Cong., Second Sess.); Foreign Relations, 1904, p. 871. [255] Foreign Relations, 1904, p. 506. For a full report of the case see Sen. Doc. No. 119, Fifty-eighth Cong., Third Sess. [256] Foreign Relations, 1903, p. 1. [257] _Am. Journal of Int. Law_, Vol. II, p. 78. [258] _Am. Journal of Int. Law_, Vol. II, Supplement, p. 82. CHAPTER VII THE ADVANCE OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE CARIBBEAN At the beginning of the nineteenth century Spain was still in possession of all the shores of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, but the downfall of her vast colonial empire was rapidly approaching. By the secret treaty of San Ildefonso she agreed to cede Louisiana back to France, and in 1803 Napoleon sold the entire province to the United States. This was our first acquisition of territory on the Gulf of Mexico, and it insured a free outlet for the vast region of the Mississippi valley. The boundaries of the province were indefinite, and there ensued a long controversy with Spain as to whether Louisiana included West Florida on the one hand and Texas on the other. These questions were finally adjusted by the Florida treaty of 1819, which ceded both East and West Florida to the United States and fixed the western boundary of Louisiana on the Gulf at the Sabine river. By this treaty the United States gained undisputed possession of the region extending from Mobile bay to the Mississippi, but abandoned the claim to Texas. [Illustration: THE CARIBBEAN]