Dear Sir,

I have just come from the Minister of the Treasury...

By my letter yesterday you learned that the Minister [Barbe-Marbois] had asked me on the 11th whether I would agree to purchase Louisiana...He thought it proper to declare that his proposition was only personal...I told him I had long endeavored to bring him to some point but unfortunately without effect...He told me he would answer my note, but that he must do so evasively because Louisiana was not theirs.  I smiled at this assertion and told him that I had seen the Treaty recognizing it [Madison knew of the San Ildefonso retrocession agreement concerning Louisiana]...He still persisted that they [France] had it in contemplation to obtain [Louisiana] but had it not.  I told him that I was very well please to understand this from him because if so we should not commit ourselves...to taking it from Spain to whom by his account it still belonged and that as we had just cause of complaint against her [Spain] if Mr. Monroe concurred in opinion with me, we should negotiate no further on the subject but advise our government to take possession.  He seemed alarmed at the boldness of the measure...

I stated the consequence of any delay on this subject as it would enable Britain to take possession - who would readily relinquish it to us...I told him it was probable the same idea might suggest itself to the United States, in which case it would be in their interest to render her [Britain] successful, and asked whether it was prudent to throw us into her [Britain's] scale.

The Consul told him [Barbe-Marbois]...let them give you one hundred million and pay their own claims [debts France owed to Americans] and take the whole country.  Seeing by my looks that I was surprised at so extravagant a demand, he added that he considered the demand as exorbitant... I now plainly saw the whole business.  First Consul was disposed to sell, next he distrusted Talleyrand on the account of the supposed intention to bribe and meant to put the negotiation into the hands of Marbois whose character for integrity is established...

I told him it was vain to ask for anything that was so greatly beyond our means...that he must know that it would render the present government [Jefferson] unpopular, and have a tendency at the next election to throw power into the hands of men who were more hostile to connection with France...I told him that he had seen the ardour of the Americans to take it [Louisiana] by force, and the difficulty with which they were restrained by the prudence of the President, that he must easily see how the hands of the war party would be strengthened when they learned that France was upon the eve of a rupture [war] with England.

I asked him in case of a purchase whether they could stipulate that France would never possess the Floridas, and that she would aid us to procure them.  He told me that they would go thus far...As to the quantum [purchase price], I have yet made no opinion; the field opened to us in infinately larger than our instructions contemplated...I persuade myself that the whole sum may be raised by the sale of the Territory West of the Mississippi, but with the right of sovereignty to some powering Europe whose vicinity we should not fear...

Your most Obt hum. Sert
Rbt. R. Livingston

The Honble James Madison Esq.