This is CBSI and the world. I'm John Bachelor with Professor Joseph Ellis.

His new book is The Cause, The American Revolution and its discontents, 1773 to 1783.

Not just what happens on the battlefield, but how it's thought about before and after, what it means.

We now go to the summer of 1782.

John Jay, a man who I would want for my attorney

in eternity. Good heavens, he is. This man comes forward with a suggestion one summer's

evening in France chatting with the Spanish ambassador to France, Count Aranda.

They're pausing over a map.

They're debating the future if and when Britain seeks to end the war.

They're looking at a map of the continent, what they have.

Count Aranda, and this is Spain, France gave up its continental

empire when it was defeated in the 1763. Spain, however, has a portion of it, you will recall,

a very large portion of it that will become critical for the expansion of the United States in the 19th

century. But right now, Canna Randis looking at a line, he draws somewhere between Ohio and

the middle of Florida, Florida being a Spanish possession at the time. John Jay cleverly leans

forward and finds the Mississippi and points out the Mississippi.

Professor, this is an amazing moment.

It's the moment where America becomes an empire.

Did they recognize it at that moment when John Jay rushed to tell Franklin what had happened?

They didn't hear about it for another six weeks, but it was a big decision.

And, of course, they didn't have cell phones then, and he couldn't call back to Philadelphia

to get instructions.

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