While Spanish chief minister Manuel Godoy was happy to transfer the territory, he demanded six French ships of the line and compensation in Italy to make it politically acceptable to Charles IV of Spain.

[5] A recent addition to the immense Spanish Empire in the Americas, possession brought Spain into conflict with the United States, whose western expansion required access to the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans.

[8] These factors made transferring Louisiana attractive to Spanish chief minister Manuel Godoy, but he needed it to be politically acceptable to Charles IV of Spain.

[10] When Austria and France made peace in the February 1801 Treaty of Lunéville, one provision forced Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany to exchange his Italian duchy for the German Electorate of Salzburg and Berchtesgaden Provostry.

[12] Negotiations between France and Britain to end the War of the Second Coalition resulted in the March 1802 Treaty of Amiens; although widely viewed as a short-lived truce, it gave Napoleon an opportunity to activate his plans for North America.

[13] The presence of French troops in the Caribbean caused great concern in the US, but by October 1802, it was clear the expedition was a catastrophic failure; its leader, General Charles Leclerc died of yellow fever, along with an estimated 22,000 of his men.

Without Saint-Domingue, Napoleon concluded Louisiana was irrelevant, and with France and Britain once again on the verge of hostilities, he decided to sell the territory to prevent it from being annexed by British forces garrisoned in nearby Canada.