TION ; SAN JUAN QUESTION.
The Southern and Southwestern Bound aries.— The preliminaries of peace to ter minate the French and Indian War (signed at Fontainebleau 3 Nov. 1762 and ratified 10 Feb. 1763) divided French possessions in the United States into two parts. The dividing line was the Mississippi from its source to the Iberville, thence through lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea. All east of this line was given to England and all west to Spain. Thus, so far as it included the ter ritory west of the Mississippi and the Island of Orleans, Louisiana was ceded to Spain by France in 1763. At the same time France acknowledged Great Britain as the lawful possessor of Louisiana east of the Mississippi with the exception of the Island of Orleans. Out of this territory Great Britain formed two provinces. A line was run from the junction of the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers due east to the Appalachicola and down that river to the Gulf ; all of the country east of the Ap palachicola (including the present State of Florida) was called East Florida; West Florida consisted of all of Spanish Florida west of the Appalachicola and of Louisiana east of lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain and south of the 31st degree of north latitude. This was the situation when peace negotiations were undertaken to terminate the Revolution ary War. The second article of the treaty of peace stated that the boundary should start on the south at a line drawn along the middle of the Mississippi until it intersected the northernmost part of the 31st degree north latitude; thence "to the middle of the river Apalachicola or Catahouche; thence along the middle thereof, to its junction with the Flint River; thence straight to the head of Saint Mary's River, and thence down the middle of Saint Mary's River, to the Atlantic South of this line lay Florida, coveted by Great Britain, wherefore a secret article was inserted in the treaty of peace providing that, should she be in possession of West Florida at the end of the war, the southern boundary of the United States should be a line running due east from the confluence of the Yazoo (or Yassous) and the Mississippi to the Appalachi cola. Thus the boundary would be 32° 30' instead of But as the British were unable to dispossess the Spanish from West Florida, the 31st parallel remained as the boundary. News of this secret article stimulated Spanish ill-feeling toward the United States, and on 25 June 1784, Spain announced that the free navigation of the Mississippi would be dis continued until the limits of Louisiana and the two Floridas had been determined. Nego tiations in 1785 and 1792 accomplished nothing, but finally on 27 Oct. 1795, Thomas Pinckney
concluded the liberal treaty of San Lorenzo el Real, which recognized the 31st degree as the southern boundary of the United States.
On 1 Oct. 1800, the treaty of San Ildefonso was signed between France and Spain by which Louisiana was retroceded to France. This treaty was very ambiguous in its descrip tion of the territory ceded, merely giving to France "the colony or province of Louisiana with the same extent it now has in the hands of Spain and that it had when France pos sessed it and such as it should be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States.* Here no definite boundaries are given and the same obscurity obtains in the Louisiana purchase treaty of 30 April 1803, which ceded "the said territory, with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully and in the same manner as they have been acquired by the French Republic, in virtue of the above-mentioned treaty, concluded with His Catholic Majesty,* thereby leaving the boundaries still to be determined. See LOUISIANA PURCHASE, THE; UNITED STATES TERRITORIAL EXPANSION ; UNITED STATES THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE; UNITED STATES THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT; ANNEXATION.
Louisiana having been purchased, Jefferson set about obtaining West Florida. Though the territory embraced therein had nothing to do with the Louisiana cession to France, Jeffer son argued that as Spain owned West Florida which was once a part of Louisiana, and as Spain had ceded Louisiana to France, West Florida was included in the cession, and there fore as Louisiana had been purchased from Napoleon, West Florida now belonged to the United States. On 24 Feb. 1804, a bill, known as the Mobile Bill, became law, nominally giving effect to the laws of the United States within the ceded territory. One section em powered the President "to erect the shores, waters and inlets of the bay and river of Mobile and of the other rivers, creeks, inlets and bays entering in the Gulf of Mexico, east of the said River Mobile and west thereof to the Pascagoula, inclusive, in a separate dis trict.* This angered the Spanish Minister, and accordingly, 20 May 1804, Jefferson issued a proclamation the effect of which was to destroy the force of the Act. In 1804 there fore Monroe was sent to Madrid to persuade Spain to acknowledge the • Perdido as the eastern boundary of Louisiana, to endeavor to buy the Spanish possessions east of the Perdido for $2,000,000 and to insist upon the right of the United States to Texas, but after months of fruitless negotiations he returned 26 May 1806, and, nothing was done for some years.