He had suspected for some time that the British were attempting to capture the mouth of the Mississippi, writing to Monroe six weeks earlier, “It appears to me most likely that their true and immediate object is New Orleans.”13 Now that they had introduced this term into the treaty, he was even more certain. If the British were able to conquer New Orleans before the treaty was signed, America’s westward expansion would be cut off, and the future shape of the United States would be determined by the British.
