unprincipled peter
Donor
I mostly agree with you. OTL, Spain did hold the sale of Louisiana to be invalid. Not sure, but I believe there was a no sale clause in there, and in any event, Nap never ponied up his end of the trade, which I think was Parma. The Spanish gov't held the transaction to be null. No reason they wouldn't do the same in this TTL. Claiming it and regaining it are two different things, though. They aren't likely to back down (at least not readily) on territorial claims held by traditional New Spain (such as Colorado or Texas or Pacific Northwest - USA used Spanish claims purchased in the Mexican American War to bolster their claims on the NW coast). USA won't be in a position to press too aggressively, either, giving Mexico/New Spain time to stabilize.The thing is though that ITTL Mexico/New Spain would most likely be the seat of the Bourbon Monarchy... and the Spainish government DID sign of on the surrender of Louisiana back to France who then sold it to the US. Considering New Spain is already going to be awash in semi-rebellious territory they have to hold down (Particularly since the major migration of penninsularies to the New World, with the backing of their supreme position by the New Spainish court, would inevitably increase tensions between the new arrivals and domestic elite who see their own position threatened by the new arrivals) they aren't really going to be in a position to overly challange the US... nor is Britain likely to back her to the hilt, since that would only drive Washington into the Bonaparte faction. Ferdinand and his decendents are going to have to pull a balancing act and make some decisions as to what is and isen't worth fighting for... and the Comache/Apache infested Great American Desert is likely going to be at the bottom of that priority list. Partiuclarly since a Pacific port is something the US would be far more likely to be willing to fight in order to obtain as opposed to, say, the freedom of New Granada/Venezuela or Peru.
Britain would likely take a neutral stance, which is still better than OTL's standing behind USA.