Colonial history of the United States Lower Louisiana. This vast tract was first settled at Mobile and Biloxi around 1700, and continued to grow when 7,000 French immigrants founded New Orleans in 1718. Settlement proceeded very slowly; New Orleans became an important port as the gateway to the Mississippi River, but there was little other economic development because the city lacked a prosperous hinterland. In 1763, Louisiana was ceded to Spain around New Orleans and west of the Mississippi River. In the 1780s, the western border of the newly independent United States stretched to the Mississippi River. The United States reached an agreement with Spain for
Reallocation of votes in the Imperial Diet (1803) The compensation was arranged acoording to a plan devised between the French and Russian delegations in 1802. In drafting the compensation for the dispossessed nobility, the French ambassador Talleyrand received substantial bribes (estimated as much as 10 million francs) from nobility clamouring for more favourable settlements. In general the more French-friendly princes received far greater compensation. As votes in the Imperial Diet were tied to specific territories the voting members possessed, the allocation of votes in the Diet also needed to be updated to both remove lands that were ceded to France as well as update to the new political