Jefferson and his Colleagues [26]
the President declared himself satisfied that "our right to the Perdido is substantial and can be opposed by a quibble on form only"; and John Randolph, duly coached by the Administration, flatly declared in the House of Representatives that "We have not only obtained the command of the mouth of the Mississippi, but of the Mobile, with its widely extended branches; and there is not now a single stream of note rising within the United States and falling into the Gulf of Mexico which is not entirely our own, the Appalachicola excepted." From this moment to the end of his administration, the acquisition of West Florida became a sort of obsession with Jefferson. His pursuit of this phantom claim involved American diplomats in strange adventures and at times deflected the whole course of domestic politics. The first luckless minister to engage in this baffling quest was James Monroe, who had just been appointed Minister to the Court of St. James. He was instructed to take up the threads of diplomacy at Madrid where they were getting badly tangled in the hands of Charles Pinckney, who was a better politician than a diplomat. "Your inquiries may also be directed," wrote Madison, "to the question whether any, and how much, of what passes for West Florida be fairly included in the territory ceded to us by France." Before leaving Paris on this mission, Monroe made an effort to secure the good offices of the Emperor, but he found Talleyrand cold and cynical as ever. He was given to understand that it was all a question of money; if the United States were willing to pay the price, the Emperor could doubtless have the negotiations transferred to Paris and put the deal through. A loan of seventy million livres to Spain, which would be passed over at once to France, would probably put the United States into possession of the coveted territory. As an honest man Monroe shrank from this sort of jobbery; besides, he could hardly offer to buy a territory which his Government asserted it had already bought with Louisiana. With the knowledge that he was defying Napoleon, or at least his ministers, he started for Madrid to play a lone hand in what he must have known was a desperate game. The conduct of the Administration during the next few months was hardly calculated to smooth Monroe's path. In the following February (1804) President Jefferson put his signature to an act which was designed to give effect to the laws of the United States in the newly acquired territory. The fourth section of this so-called Mobile Act included explicitly within the revenue district of Mississippi all the navigable waters lying within the United States and emptying into the Gulf east of the Mississippi--an extraordinary provision indeed, since unless the Floridas were a part of the United States there were no rivers within the limits of the United States emptying into the Gulf east of the Mississippi. The eleventh section was even more remarkable since it gave the President authority to erect Mobile Bay and River into a separate revenue district and to designate a port of entry. This cool appropriation of Spanish territory was too much for the excitable Spanish Minister, Don Carlos Martinez Yrujo, who burst into Madison's office one morning with a copy of the act in his hand and with angry protests on his lips. He had been on excellent terms with Madison and had enjoyed Jefferson's friendship and hospitality at Monticello; but he was the accredited representative of His Catholic Majesty and bound to defend his sovereignty. He fairly overwhelmed the timid Madison with reproaches that could never be forgiven or forgotten; and from this moment he was persona non grata in the Department of State. Madison doubtless took Yrujo's reproaches more to heart just because he felt himself in a false position. The Administration had allowed the transfer of Louisiana to be made in the full knowledge that Laussat had been instructed to claim Louisiana as far as the Rio Bravo on the west but only as far as the Iberville on the east. Laussat had finally admitted as much confidentially