nvolved in the advance of the American
army_.--id. p. 124.

[83] See Senate Doc. No. 337, 29th cong. 1st sess. p. 99.

[84] Id. p. 75.

[85] Id. p. 82.

[86] American State papers, vol. 4, p. 468.

[87] Id. vol. 2, p. 662.

[88] As it may be important that the reader should understand the title
to Louisiana under which the boundary of the Rio Grande was claimed, the
following is a summary of its history. Louisiana originally belonged to
France, but by a secret compact between that country and Spain in 1762,
and by treaties, in the following year, between France, Spain, and
England, the French dominion was extinguished on all the continent of
America. In consequence of the treaty between this country and England
in 1783, the Mississippi became the western boundary of the United
States from its source to the 31 deg. of north latitude, and thence, on the
same parallel to the St. Mary's. France, it will be remembered, always
had _claimed_ dominion in Louisiana to the Rio Bravo or Rio Grande, by
virtue

1st. Of the discovery of the Mississippi from near its source to the
ocean.

2d. _Of the possession taken, and establishment made by La Salle, at the
bay of St. Bernard, west of the rivers Trinity and Colorado, by
authority of Louis XIV, in 1685_; notwithstanding the subsequent
destruction of the colony.

3d. Of the charter of Louis XIV, to Crozat in 1712.

4th. The historical authority of Du Pratz, Champigny, and the Count de
Vergennes.

5th. Of the authority of De Lisle's map, and of the map published in
1762 by Don Thomas Lopez, _geographer to the king of Spain_, as well as
of various other maps, atlases, and geographical and historical
authorities.

By an article of the secret treaty of San Ildefonso, in October, 1800,
Spain retroceded Louisiana to France; yet this treaty was not
promulgated till the beginning of 1802. The paragraph of cession is as
follows: "His Catholic majesty engages to retrocede to the French
republic, six months after the full and entire execution of the
conditions and stipulations above recited relative to his Royal
Highness, the Duke of Parma, the colony and province of Louisiana, with
the same extent that it already has in the hands of Spain, _and that it
had when France possessed it_, and such as it should be, after the
treaties passed subsequently between Spain and other powers." In 1803,
Bonaparte, the first consul of the French republic, ceded Louisiana to
the United States,