Louisiana Purchase Treaty is signed, April 30th, 1803
President Jefferson dispatched James Monroe to France, authorizing him to offer $10 million for New Orleans or all or part of the Floridas. The French made an extraordinary and completely unexpected counteroffer. Napoleon had been advised to abandon his plan to restore the French Empire in North America and to simply sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States. For $15 million Jefferson purchased 828,000 square miles, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Hudson Bay basin, from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. The purchase more than doubled the size of the United States, at about 3 cents an acre.