States would have involved the proposers in much personal risk, and that the plan itself was productive of no inconvenience to the United States Government as long as 11 it had not been acted upon by the King's Ministers. England did not stand alone in its designs

upon the Spanish possessions, French interests, too, were centered upon Louisiana. A careful study of French

policy shows that France endeavored to unite the Southwest settlements with the province of Louisiana. It is of interest to recall that during the American revolution, the French ministers held that American rights did not ex12 tend beyond the Alleghenies. France fully expected to get back Louisiana, and was, for that reason, vitally con

cerned with the disposal of lands between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi River. France was no more willing

13

than England or Spain to see the Western settlements admitted to the Union. De Moustier, French minister to the United States in 1787, was informed informed that it was to the interest of France that the United States, "remain in her present condition rather than form a new constitution. French travellers visited the territory between the Alle

14

11. Life of King, II, p. 218.

12. Turner, Policy of France, pp. 249-253.

13. Ibid., p. 254.

15

ghenies and the Mississippi and reported to France the importance of Louisiana. In 1790, when England and Spain were about to go to war over the Nootka Sound affair, there were clear expectations of a British attack

upon New Orleans.16 It was at this time that Pitt

talked to Miranda, the Venezuelan revolutionist about an attack on Spanish American possessions. Jefferson, convinced of the danger, suggested that Spain cede New Orleans and Florida in return for United States' protection of the Spanish settlements that lay beyond the Mississippi.

17

In the same year, France sent Bourgoing

to Spain to negotiate for Louisiana, but Spain refused to

When war was imminent with England, France

needed Louisiana as a protection for the French West Indies and approached Spain again.

Complete rupture

with Spain soon followed. Then Genet was sent to the United States with definite instructions to take Louis

iana.

19

With the aid of the French in Louisiana and Canada, Indians and frontiersmen, Genet hoped to seize

15. Turner, Policy of France, p. 257.

16. R. G. Adams, History of the Foreign Policy of the United States (New York, 1924), p. 82.

17. Turner, Policy of France, p. 258.

18. Ibid., p. 258.