great private grief which took away the love of power, he relinquished his title, and Louisiana reverted to the crown. The Illinois country was afterward added to the original Louisiana territory, and the whole once more granted to Law's Mississippi Company, which company held it until 1732, when, the bubble of speculation being hopelessly flattened, Louisiana once more reverted to the French crown, and remained a French province until 1769.
In the meantime, however, certain negotiations were being carried forward which were to decide the future boundaries of the United States. In 1762, on the 3d of November, a convention was held at Paris, to settle the preliminaries of peace between France and Spain on the one part, and England and Portugal on the other, in which convention it was agreed that France should cede to Spain "all the country known under the name of Louisiana, as also New Orleans and the island on which that city is situated." On the 23d of the same month, this cession was formally concluded, giving to Spain, with the consent of Great Britain and Portugal, all the country drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries, except a small portion north of the Illinois country, which was never mentioned in the boundaries of Louisiana.
In less than three months after the cession of Louisiana to Spain, a treaty was concluded in Paris between the same high contracting parties, by which Great Britain obtained from France Canada, and from Spain Florida, and that portion of Louisiana east of a line drawn along the middle of the Mississippi, "from its source to the River Iberville, and thence along the middle of the Iberville, and the Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, to the sea."
