The inclosed paper, a letter by “VIATOR” clipped from the 14 Feb. 1816 issue of the Richmond Virginia Argus, dated 7 Feb. from Philadelphia and originally addressed “To the Editor of the Democratic Press,” commented that “As the boundary question relating to Louisiana, is likely to become an interesting object of public attention, I send you a brief statement of the title of the United States to the country from Rio Perdido, in East Florida, to Rio Bravo, west of the Bay of St. Bernard—Perhaps I may by and bye, send you the title now set up by the court of Spain to the country east of the Ibberville, and west of the Mississippi, should the present essay appear to you worth attention”; asserted that the American right to Louisiana derived from the French title; gave the history of the French claims from 1673 to 1803; and concluded that the current disagreement between the United States and Spain grew out of the 1803 treaty between the United States and France in which the latter sold its Louisiana lands to the United States, including those ceded by Spain to France under the Treaty of San Ildefonso.

TJ’s memoir & chronological statement included his Chronology of Territorial Claims in Louisiana, [ca. 31 Aug. 1803] (PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 38 vols. description ends , 41:323–9), and Examination of the Boundaries of Louisiana, 7 Sept. 1803, with 15 Jan. 1804 postscript (PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 38 vols. description ends , 41:329–40, 42:280–4). Monroe and Charles Pinckney negotiated with the Spanish government at madrid in an effort to settle the Louisiana boundary dispute (ASP, Foreign Relations, 2:627–33). fac valeas, meque mutuo diligas: “Goodbye, and cherish me as I do you.”