[Footnote: Turner, in Am. Hist. Rev., X., 249 et seq.,
276.] The elder Adams turned a deaf ear to these suggestions, and
when at last Napoleon achieved the possession of Louisiana, it was
only to turn it over to the United States. [Footnote: Sloane, in Am.
Hist. Rev., IV., 439.] Jefferson's threat that the possession of
Louisiana by France would seal the union between England and the
United States and "make the first cannon which shall be fired in
Europe the signal for the tearing up of any settlement she may have
made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration
for the common purposes of the united British and American nations,"
[Footnote: Jefferson, Writings (Ford's ed.), VIII., 145.] showed how
unstable must be the American policy of isolation so long as Europe
had a lodgment on our borders. [Footnote: Cf. Channing, Jeffersonian
System (Am. Nation, XII.), chap. v.]
The acquisition of Louisiana by the United States was followed by
the annexation of West Florida; and the Seminole campaign frightened
Spain into the abandonment of East Florida.
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