well toward the United States. Rufus King brought to America at the same time with news of the Louisiana treaty, or had sent shortly before, two conventions by which long-standing differences were settled. One of these conventions disposed the old subject of British debts,—the British government accepting a round sum of six hundred thousand pounds on behalf of the creditors.[1] The other created two commissions for running the boundary line between Maine and Nova Scotia, and between the Lake of the Woods and the Mississippi River.[2] King went so far as to express the opinion that had he not been on the eve of his departure, he might have succeeded in making some arrangement about impressments; and he assured Gallatin that the actual Administration in England was the most favorable that had existed or could exist for the interests of the United States; its only misfortune was its weakness.[3] The conduct of the British government in regard to Louisiana proved the truth of King's assertion. Not only did it offer no opposition to the sale, but it lent every possible assistance to the transfer; and under its eye, with its consent, Alexander Baring made the financial arrangements which were to furnish Bonaparte with ten million American dollars to pay the preliminary expenses of an invasion of England.
