The extent and boundaries of the territory thus ceded by France were ill-defined, and, in fact, unknown. The French negotiator who conferred with Monroe and Livingston, declared a large portion of the country transferred to be no better known at the time "than when Columbus landed at the Bahamas." There was no way by which accurate metes and bounds could be described. This fact disturbed the upright and conscientious Marbois, who thought that "treaties of territorial cession should contain a guaranty from the grantor." He was especially anxious, moreover, that no ambiguous clauses should be introduced in the treaty. He communicated his troubles on this point to the First Consul, advising him that it seemed impossible to construct the treaty so as to free it from obscurity on the important matter of boundaries. Far from exhibiting any sympathy with his faithful minister's solicitude on this point, Bonaparte quietly informed him that, "if an obscurity did not already exist, it would perhaps be good policy to put one in the treaty." In the possibilities of the First Consul's future, the acquisition of Spanish America may have been expected, or at least dreamed of, by him; and an ill-defined, uncertain boundary for Louisiana might possibly, in a few years, be turned greatly to his advantage.
There was certainly obscurity enough in the transfer to satisfy the fullest desire of Bonaparte. France ceded Louisiana to the United States "with all its rights and appurtenances," as acquired by the retrocession from Spain under the treaty of San Ildefonso, Oct. 1, 1800; and by that treaty Spain had "transferred it to France with the same extent it then had in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France previously possessed it, and such as it should be with the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other States." This was simply giving to us what Spain had given to France, and that was only what France had before given to Spain, --complicated with such treaties as Spain might have made during the thirty-seven years of her ownership. It was evident, therefore, from the very hour of the acquisition, that we should have abundant trouble with our only remaining neighbors in North America, Spain and Great Britain, in adjusting the boundaries of the vast country which we had so successfully acquired from France.