us more nearly what we had purchased than any other would have done; for although there had never been a western boundary to Louisiana, the most western French fort had been at Natchitoches, about forty miles east of the Sabine, and the most eastern Spanish post had been Nacogdoches, about the same distance to the west.1 The Sabine, moreover had been agreed upon as a temporary military boundary in 1806.

treaty

In return for the cession of the Floridas we released Spain from all claims under the convention of 1802, which had just Terms of the been renewed, and agreed to assume the payment of them to the amount of five million dollars. The treaty resembled that relating to the purchase of Louisiana, in providing that "The inhabitants of the territories which His Catholic Majesty cedes to the United States, by this treaty, shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, as soon as may be consistent with the principles of the Federal Constitution, and admitted to the enjoyment of all the privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States."

To Adams's mind, the most important provision of the treaty was that which described the boundary between the Boundary to United States and the possessions of Spain the Pacific north of the Sabine. This line zigzagged by rivers and parallels of latitude, until it followed the fortysecond parallel to the Pacific. Instead, therefore, of completing the bounding of Louisiana, it departed from that purchase and, running westward, created the first international boundary-line that touched the western ocean. It thus added a fifth link to our claim to Oregon.

The treaty was signed February 22, 1819, but its ratification was delayed both in the United States, because of opposition to the so-called surrender of Texas,

Ratification

and in Spain; so that ratifications were not

finally exchanged until February 22, 1821.

1 R. C. Clark, The Beginnings of Texas, Texas Hist. Assoc., Quarterly. 1902, v. 171-205.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MONROE DOCTRINE 1

revolutions

THE elevation of Joseph Bonaparte to the throne of Spain in 1808 snapped the worn bands that held her American colonies. Miranda was correct in his diagnosis of Spanishsentiment in Spanish America. Innumerable American causes, local and general, preventable and inevitable, had long nourished a discontent that but awaited an opportunity to manifest itself. In 1810 Miranda, who had of late been making his headquarters in the United States, lost his life in a tragic effort to start the blaze in his home province of Venezuela. In the same year a more successful beginning was made at Buenos Ayres by leaders who still professed loyalty to the Spanish nation, which also, with the fostering aid of England, was resisting the Bonapartist dynasty. When, however, in 1815 Ferdinand VII was restored, this loyalty disappeared; Buenos Ayres never permitted the exercise of his power, and soon the flames of revolt were sweeping over the continent. In 1822 the conflagration raging northward from Buenos Ayres met, in Peru, that which Bolivar had kindled in Venezuela from the ashes of Miranda's movement. In 1821 Mexico had thrown off the yoke; and there was left of the Spanish empire almost nothing except an army in the heights of the Andes which was to succumb in 1824, and the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico. Brazil separated from Portugal in 1822.

To the European mind this outbreak seemed a continuation of the revolution that had begun in the United States and had swept through Europe under the leadership of the French.

1 D. C. Gilman, James Monroe, revised ed., Boston, etc., [1900]. The appendix contains a bibliography of the Monroe Doctrine to 1897.

European

Brazil, indeed, established an empire; but Spain's former possessions broke up into federal republics based on the model of the United States. In 1820 the moverevolutions ment seemed to rebound to Europe, and insurrections and revolts broke out in Spain herself, in Naples, in Sardinia, and in Greece.

liance

This time, however, revolution found monarchy organized to resist it. September 26, 1815, there had been signed at The Holy Al- Paris, at the earnest solicitation of Czar Alexander, the so-called Holy Alliance, by which Russia, Austria, and Prussia united to defend religion and morality, and, what they believed to be the only sure foundation for them, government by divine right. While the Holy Alliance of itself did little, it inspired with its principles the quadruple alliance, of which France was a member and with which England sometimes coöperated, as in the joint demonstration against the Barbary pirates. In 1821 the meeting of the allies at Troppau authorized Austria to quench the revolts in Italy, and it was done. In 1822 the meeting at Verona commissioned France to restore the Spanish monarchy, and that task was accomplished in 1823.

The Congress of Verona resolved "that "the system of representative government is equally incompatible with the European in- monarchical principles as the maxim of the sovtervention ereignty of the people is with the divine right "; and the members engaged, "mutually and in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative governments in whatsoever country it may exist in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced in those countries where it is not yet known." It is to be observed that the qualifying clause "in Europe" applies to the suppression of representative government where it then existed. It does not apply to the countries into which its future introduction should not be allowed. This precise reading of a phrase which was probably carefully framed leaves the United States unthreatened, but it seems to

imply a purpose to interfere in Spanish America. Nor was there any reason why European statesmen should recognize the Atlantic as a dividing line. Ideas crossed it all too readily for their taste, and they had always looked upon the whole world of European culture as one. It was the rumor, also, that France expected reward for her services to Spain in the shape of a Mexican kingdom for one of her princes, or in the cession of Cuba.1 Besides, Russia was certainly advancing along the northwest coast, and might find cause and power to demand California from a grateful Spain.

and Spain

Great Britain, although she had opposed Revolution as exemplified in France, was as little in sympathy with Divine Right. She was alarmed at the disturbance Great Britain in that delicate adjustment, the balance of power in Europe, which the alliance of all the great powers brought about. Her special interests, too, differed from those of continental Europe. If the Spanish-American revolutions of 1810 had not saved her from bankruptcy, as Napoleon believed, they had at any rate opened a rich and long-sought opportunity for wealth. If the dreams of Hawkins, of the speculators in the South Sea Bubble, of the colonists to Darien, were perhaps not fully realized, they at least became substantial. Ferdinand VII, after his restoration, though profuse in his rewards to his protector Wellington, was less obviously grateful to the nation that had sent Wellington to help him. He restored the old colonial system,

No longer bound by any ties of consideration for Spain, Great Britain was unwilling to let Spanish-American trade slip through her fingers. She had no territorial ambitions; in a free competition she would gain the trade which was her principal object. Consequently she looked with pleasure on

1 Marquis de Chateaubriand, Oeuvres complètes (12 vols., Paris, 1865–73), x. 359, etc.

2 J. R. Seeley, The Expansion of England, Boston, 1883, and later editions; Montagu Burrows, History of the Foreign Policy of Great Britain, New York, 1895; Viscount Castlereagh, Memoirs and Correspondence, etc. (12 vols., London, 1850–53), vii. 257-456, etc.

Great Britain and Spanish America

the progress of the revolution, one of the impulses of which was the desire to do business with her. England's interests and her moral convictions generally coincide, and she has never spared her blood to advance them both. English volunteers, therefore, flocked to the banners of the revolutionary leaders. Admiral Cockrane commanded the fleet, practically a British one, which turned the tide on the Pacific coast, and a British legion was one of Bolivar's strongest weapons.1 In 1819 the government passed a neutrality act, ordering its subjects to stand aloof, it did not recognize the independence of the new states; but its sympathy was well known, and when Canning became foreign minister, in 1822, he made the question his leading interest. England would object to any action which might close the ports of Spanish America to her, she would object to the acquisition of Cuba by France, and to the extension of Russian territory. How she would object was not known.

Sympathy in the United

States

For the United States the situation was a difficult one. Our republican sympathies were aroused by the vision of a people shaking off the yoke of a European country. Our pride was touched by an apparent effort to imitate our methods. In 1811 both houses of Congress resolved "that they beheld with friendly interest the establishment of independent sovereignties by the Spanish provinces of America." In 1810 Joel Poinsett was sent to Buenos Ayres "to ascertain the real condition of the South American peoples, as well as their prospects of success." His report of 1818 was unfavorable; but we continued to maintain an agent at that city, and Clay made his sympathy for the movement his chief political instrument in attacking the administration. In 1818 trade with SpanishAmerica was authorized.2 Adventurers threw themselves 1 Winsor, America, vol. viii.

2 F. L. Paxson, The Independence of the South American Republics, Philadelphia, 1903; C. J. Stillé, The Life and Services of Joel R. Poinsett, Philadelphia, 1888.