Editing James Monroe (section)

===Louisiana Purchase and Minister to Great Britain===
Shortly after the end of Monroe's gubernatorial tenure, President Jefferson sent Monroe back to France to assist Ambassador Robert Livingston in negotiating the [[Louisiana Purchase]]. In the 1800 [[Third Treaty of San Ildefonso|Treaty of San Ildefonso]], France had acquired the territory of [[Louisiana (New Spain)|Louisiana]] from Spain; at the time, many in the U.S. believed that France had also acquired [[West Florida]] in the same treaty. The American delegation originally sought to acquire West Florida and the city of [[New Orleans]], which controlled the trade of the [[Mississippi River]]. Determined to acquire New Orleans even if it meant war with France, Jefferson also authorized Monroe to form an alliance with the British if the French refused to sell the city.<ref>{{harvnb|Unger|2009|pp=152–154, 158}}</ref>

Meeting with [[François Barbé-Marbois]], the French foreign minister, Monroe and Livingston agreed to purchase the entire territory of Louisiana for $15&nbsp;million; the purchase became known as the [[Louisiana Purchase]]. In agreeing to the purchase, Monroe violated his instructions, which had only allowed $9&nbsp;million for the purchase of New Orleans and West Florida. The French did not acknowledge that West Florida remained in Spanish possession, and the United States would claim that France had sold West Florida to the United States for several years to come. Though he had not ordered the purchase of the entire territory, Jefferson strongly supported Monroe's actions, which ensured that the United States would continue to expand to the West. Overcoming doubts about whether the Constitution authorized the purchase of foreign territory, Jefferson won congressional approval for the Louisiana Purchase, and the acquisition doubled the size of the United States. Monroe would travel to Spain in 1805 to try to win the cession of West Florida, but found that the American ambassador to Spain, [[Charles Pinckney (governor)|Charles Pinckney]], had alienated the Spanish government with crude threats of violence. In the negotiations on the outstanding territorial issues concerning New Orleans, West Florida and the Rio Grande, Monroe made no progress and was treated condescendingly, and with the support of France, Spain refused to consider relinquishing the territory.<ref>{{harvnb|Unger|2009|pp=163–169, 181–183}}</ref>

After the resignation of [[Rufus King]], Monroe was appointed as the [[United States Ambassador to Great Britain|ambassador to Great Britain]] in 1803. The greatest issue of contention between the United States and Britain was that of the [[impressment]] of U.S. sailors. Many U.S. merchant ships employed British seamen who had deserted or dodged conscription, and the British frequently impressed sailors on U.S. ships in hopes of quelling their manpower issues. Many of the sailors they impressed had never been British subjects, and Monroe was tasked with persuading the British to stop their practice of impressment. Monroe found little success in this endeavor, partly due to Jefferson's alienation of the British minister to the United States, [[Anthony Merry]]. Rejecting Jefferson's offer to serve as the first governor of [[Louisiana Territory]], Monroe continued to serve as ambassador to Britain until 1807.<ref>{{harvnb|Unger|2009|pp=170–176, 193}}</ref>

In 1806 he negotiated the [[Monroe–Pinkney Treaty]] with Great Britain. It would have extended the Jay Treaty of 1794 which had expired after ten years. Jefferson had fought the Jay Treaty intensely in 1794–95 because he felt it would allow the British to subvert [[Republicanism in the United States|American republicanism]]. The treaty had produced ten years of peace and highly lucrative trade for American merchants, but Jefferson was still opposed. When Monroe and the British signed the new treaty in December 1806, Jefferson refused to submit it to the Senate for ratification. Although the treaty called for ten more years of trade between the United States and the British Empire and gave American merchants guarantees that would have been good for business, Jefferson was unhappy that it did not end the hated British practice of impressment and refused to give up the potential weapon of commercial warfare against Britain. The president made no attempt to obtain another treaty, and as a result, the two nations drifted from peace toward the [[War of 1812]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Alan|last=Axelrod|title=Profiles in Folly: History's Worst Decisions and Why They Went Wrong|url=https://archive.org/details/profilesinfollyh00axel|url-access=registration|publisher=Sterling Publishing|year=2008|page=[https://archive.org/details/profilesinfollyh00axel/page/154 154]|isbn=9781402747687}}</ref> Monroe was severely pained by the administration's repudiation of the treaty, and he fell out with Secretary of State James Madison.<ref name=leibiger>{{cite book|last1=Leibiger|first1=Stuart|title=A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe|date=July 31, 2012|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|pages=489–491|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eSftIw3YSTQC&pg=PA517|access-date=October 12, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160704142341/https://books.google.com/books?id=eSftIw3YSTQC&pg=PA517|archive-date=July 4, 2016|isbn=978-1-118-28143-7}}</ref>