re-establish the public tranquility and the security of their common interests; to damage in all possible ways the commerce of France and to reduce that power to just conditions of peace; to endeavor to unite all neutrals "on this occasion of common concern to all civilized nations" to refuse protection to French commerce, directly or indirectly, on the high seas; and, most important for our present study, "their Britannic and Most Catholic Majesties reciprocally agreed not to lay down their arms (unless by common agreement) without having obtained restitution of all the estates, territories, cities or places which belonged to the one or to the other before the beginning of the war, and of which the enemy may have taken possession during the course of hostilities."5 Spain for a few months became heart and soul a member of the First Coalition of allied monarchs against revolutionary France. Thus when Short arrived in Spain, any alarm which the rulers of that monarchy may have once felt for the immediate safety of Louisiana had vanished. Far from fearing any Anglo-American combination, Spain herself was rapidly, though reluctantly, slipping into the Cantillo, Tratados, etc., 547. "Spain would, I think, have remained neutre, if the Court could have been fully convinced that France would not finally have forced them into war-but it being morally impossible to have this conviction and the Cabinet of St. James finding the war inevitable for them and pressing the decision of this Court by various arguments which will suggest themselves to you, it has been deemed better probably to enter into the war at present, comme de soi même, than to be forced in hereafter." Short to Gouverneur Morris, Aranjuez, Feb. 18, 1793, Short Papers, XXII, 3994. "As to general European politics, there seems to embrace of Great Britain. The European war anticipated by Jefferson, instead of placing Great Britain and Spain on opposite sides, had reversed the traditional balance of power and made allies of them. Now neither had the other to fear in North America. To outside observers their alliance suggested mutual support in all quarters of the globe. Together controlling the sea, there appeared no danger either from their common enemy or from uneasy neutrals to any of the colonial dominions of either ally. As long as this new alliance rested on an unshaken foundation Spain paid little attention to the United States. While Europe was undergoing this kaleidoscopic history, a spectacular change had taken place in the personnel of the Spanish Ministry. It was now under the guidance of the court adventurer, Manuel de Godoy, whose princely parts and comely person had won the amours of the dissolute Queen Luisa and had raised me an impossibility of peace between this country and France, and yet many people even at the fountain-head express hopes of it-they consult more their wishes than their reason probablyfor most of them wish for peace-the King from sentiment, it is thought, is ardent for war and certainly imposes as yet silence on those who are against it-this conflict may produce half-way measures. The French Minister left Madrid three days agohe was forbidden by the minister here to come to this place, the present residence of the Court. Until the death of the King he was admitted to conference-from that time it ceased, and without that atrocious and impolitic act this country would not have been the aggressor. What will be the conduct of Great Britain toward neutral vessels going to France?" Short to Thomas Pinckney, Aranjuez, Feb. 26, 1793, Ibid., 4006. him over the ruin in succession of the able and patriotic ministers for foreign affairs, Floridablanca, and Aranda, and had given him the title of Duke of Alcudia. Not that the youthful Godoy-he came into power in his twenty-fifth year-was without some pretense to ability. Short later reported that the diplomatic corps acknowledged a new spirit of regularity and despatch in the Foreign Office after Alcudia had ensconsed himself there. The multitudinous marginalia on his despatches attest his industry though not his moral stamina, maturity, nor the judgment necessary in a statesman of the first or even of the second rank. 8 Godoy after much delay and leisurely punctilio, deputed the negotiations with the United States to the Minister of Finance in the reorganized Council of State. This was none other than Diego de Gardoqui, the former chargé at New York, who certainly knew as much about the Mississippi as either of the American envoys, and had been in America much more recently than they. His time monopolized by the tre Short to the Sec. State, No. 137, Madrid, Jan. 4, 1794, Hague and Spain, 1, 146. On Godoy and the Spanish Court in general see, in addition to the classic description in Henry Adams, History of the United States in the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison, I, 334-351: Memoirs of Don Manuel de Godoy; and The Intrigues of the Queen of Spain with the Prince of Peace and Others, by "A Spanish Nobleman," London, 1808; H. Baumgarten, Geschichte Spanien's zur Zeit der Franzosischen Revolution, (Berlin, 1861), 419 et seq. 8 Carmichael and Short to Sec. of State, Aranjuez, Feb. 19, 1793, Short Papers, XXIII, 3998. The original is missing from the State Department, and is not in A. S. P., F. R. mendous business contingent upon the prosecution of the war, Gardoqui was willing to give them appointments only on Saturdays. It was soon evident that he now ridiculed both of the American claims, for which eighteen months before, under much different circumstances, he had advised respect. The commissioners were courteously received, but there was always a pretext for putting them off. On one excuse after another interviews were postponed. Answers to their written notes met delays beyond all justification. A reply was sure to open some technical avenue of elusion. Week after week, month after month, to the great indignation of Short, upon whom in Carmichael's physical incapacity fell the great burden of the negotiation, the American plenipotentiaries were put off. Yet they lingered on in Spain, hoping that news in America of the outbreak of the European war and the signature of the Anglo-Spanish alliance would cause them to receive altered instructions more adaptable to the new situation. From Madrid to the Escorial, to Aranjuez, to San Ildefonso and La Granja and back to the Pardo and the capital, through the dust of Castille, they wearily pursued the peripatetic and leisurely Spanish Court." Short to Jefferson, Feb. 3; No. 124, March 6; No. 125, June 7; No. 126, July 1, 1793, Hague and Spain, I, 75-97. Joint despatches of Carmichael and Short (written by Short but signed by both), April 18, May 5, June 6, Sept. 29, 1793, printed in A. S. P., F. R., I, 259-278. The originals are not extant in the State Department, nor is any of Carmichael's correspondence to the Secretary of State. Copies of missing joint despatches exist in the Short Papers. "Monotony and ennui seem to have fixed their reign [here]." Short to T. Pinckney, XXIII, 4119. When despatches did finally arrive from Philadelphia announcing Washington's proclamation of neutrality they brought no new nor positive instructions. Instead, a special messenger appeared from Philadelphia bringing directions to present a fresh and weighty issue arising out of Spain's interference with the Indian tribes of the Southwest. We must leave the Madrid negotiations at a standstill, in order to examine the rise of this issue. II The rout of the Spanish conspirators in the Kentucky convention of November, 1788, marked the collapse of their first efforts to separate that district from the Union. After this the movement for statehood proceeded with little danger of frustration. Eastern men jealous of western progress dared no more to put obstacles in the way. After a year had been consumed by further Kentucky conventions in arranging with the Assembly of Virginia the final details of separation, an enabling act was passed by Congress and the new state under a constitution of its own making came into the Union in 1791. The consummation of Kentucky statehood extinguished the immediate hopes of the Wilkinson coterie. The adventurer himself blamed the Spanish order admitting Kentucky products into Louisiana for the prostration of the separatist movement. This order, allowing western settlers to bring their produce down |