The acquisition of Louisiana brought incalculable wealth, power, and prestige to the Union, and must always be regarded as the master- stroke of policy which advanced the United States from a comparatively feeble nation, lying between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, to a continental power of assured strength and boundless promise. The _coup d'etat_ of the First Consul was an overwhelming surprise and disappointment to the English Government. Bonaparte was right in assuming that prompt action on his part was necessary to save Louisiana from the hands of the English. Twelve days after the treaty ceding Louisiana to the United States was signed, the British ambassador at Paris, Lord Whitworth, demanded his passports. At Dover he met the French ambassador to England, General Andreossy, who had likewise demanded his passports. Lord Whitworth loaded General Andreossy with tokens of esteem, and conducted him to the ship which was to bear him back to France. According to an eminent historian, "the two ambassadors parted in the presence of a great concourse of people, agitated, uneasy, sorrowful. On the eve of so important a determination, the warlike passion subsided; and men were seized with a dread of the consequences of a desperate conflict. At this solemn moment the two nations seemed to bid each other adieu, not to meet again till after a tremendous war and the convulsion of the world." THE DESIGNS OF ENGLAND FOILED. England's acquisition of Louisiana would have proved in the highest degree embarrassing, if not disastrous, to the Union. At that time the forts of Spain, transferred to France, and thence to the United States, were on the east side of the Mississippi, hundreds of miles from its mouth. If England had seized Louisiana, as Bonaparte feared, the Floridas, cut off from the other colonies of Spain, would certainly have fallen into her hands by easy and prompt negotiation, as they did, a few years later, into the hands of the United States. England would thus have had her colonies planted on the three land-sides of the Union, while on the ocean-side her formidable navy confronted the young republic. No colonial acquisition ever made by her on any continent has been so profitable to her commerce, and so strengthening her military position, as that of Louisiana would have proved. This fact was clearly seen by Bonaparte when he hastily made the treaty ceding it to the United States. That England did not at once attempt to seize it, in disregard of Bonaparte's cession, has been a source of surprise to many historians. The obvious reason is that she dreaded the complication of a war in America when she was about to assume so heavy a burden in the impending European conflict. The inhabitants of the Union in 1803 were six millions in number, of great energy and confidence. A large proportion of them were accustomed to the