While the packet bearing Monroe was buffeting stormy seas, the policy of
Bonaparte underwent a transformation--an abrupt transformation it seemed
to Livingston. On the 12th of March the American Minister witnessed an
extraordinary scene in Madame Bonaparte's drawing-room. Bonaparte and
Lord Whitworth, the British Ambassador, were in conversation, when the
First Consul remarked, "I find, my Lord, your nation want war again."
"No, Sir," replied the Ambassador, "we are very desirous of peace." "I
must either have Malta or war," snapped Bonaparte. The amazed onlookers
soon spread the rumor that Europe was again to be plunged into war; but,
viewed in the light of subsequent events, this incident had even greater
significance; it marked the end of Bonaparte's colonial scheme.
Though the motives for this change of front will always be a matter
of conjecture, they are somewhat clarified by the failure of the Santo
Domingo expedition. Leclerc was dead; the negroes were again in
control; the industries of the island were ruined; Rochambeau, Leclerc's
successor, was clamoring for thirty-five thousand more men to reconquer
the island; the expense was alarming--and how meager the returns for
this colonial venture! Without Santo Domingo, Louisiana would be of
little use; and to restore prosperity to the West India island--even
granting that its immediate conquest were possible--would demand many
years and large disbursements. The path to glory did not lie in this
direction. In Europe, as Henry Adams observes, "war could be made to
support war; in Santo Domingo peace alone could but slowly repair some
part of this frightful waste."

There may well have been other reasons for Bonaparte's change of front.
If he read between the lines of a memoir which Pontalba, a wealthy and
well-informed resident of Louisiana, sent to him, he must have realized
that this province, too, while it might become an inexhaustible source
of wealth for France, might not be easy to hold. There was here, it is
true, no Toussaint L'Ouverture to lead the blacks in insurrection; but
there was a white menace from the north which was far more serious.
These Kentuckians, said Pontalba trenchantly, must be watched, cajoled,
and brought constantly under French influence through agents. There were
men among them who thought of Louisiana "as the highroad to the conquest
of Mexico." Twenty or thirty thousand of these westerners on flatboats
could come down the river and sw