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and in granting the latter [the navigation of the Mississippi] with the restrictions which the interest of his [Majesty's] subjects requires; but the King desires that the equivalent (premio) of this direct favor (condesendencia) be a solid alliance and reciprocal guaranty of our possessions and those of the States in America. To this end His Catholic Majesty desires that the President send a person with full power, which these [American plenipotentiaries in Madrid, Carmichael and Short], who are most addicted to France, do not hold, for a treaty of alliance to be independent of the circumstances and relationships of the [present European] war." The Spanish agents meanwhile must do all in their power to prevent too close relationships between France and the United States, and, above all, to further an understanding between the United States and Spain before the English could secure a treaty with the same republic prejudicial to the interests of Spain.

Short, who had learned so suddenly from Godoy that these new Spanish propositions had been sent to the President, remained unaware of their content. Dated at Madrid the 26th of July, 1794, and despatched from thence the 31st of the same month, they were acknowledged by Jaudenes on December 8. This means

9 Jaudenes to Alcudia, No. 275, Phila., Dec. 8. 1794, A. H. N., Est., Leg. 3895 bis.

The same instructions allowed the appointment of consuls in the United States, as had been previously advised by Jaudenes and Viar, more for the sake of securing reliable intelligence from the west and south as to separatists plots, than for commercial usefulness. As a result Viar was appointed consul-general of Spain. Jaudenes thereafter had charge of diplomatic interests.

that they reached the American capital shortly after the Senate of the United States had confirmed the nomination of Thomas Pinckney,10 regular minister at London, to serve as envoy extraordinary to Spain for the settlement of the long pending issues. Pinckney's appointment had been decided under much different circumstances in August, 1794, not long after Jaudenes and Viar had made official complaints which vividly contrast with the irenic proposals which they were now directed to present. We recall that Godoy in May, 1794, as a part of his technique of procrastination, had instructed the Spanish agents at Philadelphia to state to the President that his representatives in Madrid, Short and Carmichael, lacked sufficient powers for the objects in view, "that unless the ministers whom the United States should nominate were to be considered by His Majesty in every circumstance as possessing that character, splendor and carriage which corresponds with residence near the royal person and with the gravity of the subjects to be treated," the King could not enter into any treaty. The shortcomings of Carmichael were described by Godoy-with some justice, the student of that individual's character must acknowledge-as "already notorious," the con

10 The mission was first offered to Thomas Jefferson, and later to Patrick Henry. Randolph to Jefferson, Aug. 28, 1794, Domestic Letters, VII, 192. Both refused. Senator Pierce Butler of South Carolina served as the confidential informant of Jaudenes and Viar, according to their despatches. He hoped, and they hoped, that he would secure the appointment to Madrid. See Jaudenes to Viar, Nos. 161, 240, 273, A. H. N., Est., Leg. 3895, and 3895 bis.

duct of Short was asserted to be "not very circumspect." This had been written by Godoy at Madrid two months before the disconcerting news about Jay's new mission had arrived there and at a time when it had still been a purpose of the Spanish Court to resort to all possible devices to put off the American negotiation as long as possible.

The Pinckney mission itself-which we shall have occasion to renew in detail in Chapter XII-therefore was not the result of the new circumstances produced by the departure of Jay and the shifting international alignment caused by the breaking down of the First Coalition against France. Resolved upon several months before the Anglo-American crisis of 1794, it had been merely another complacent American step of "patience and persuasion," in answer to an artificial complaint by Spain of the kind which only a strong power would make to a contemptuously weak government-befitting language, that of the Spaniard Godoy, for a republic! Secretary Randolph at that time had thought the Spanish negotiations in a state of "complete stagnation." He believed war not unlikely, and sent to Short directions to despatch information about Spain's military preparations in America and her means of harming the United States in that quarter.12 Like the special mission of John Jay to London, the

11 Jaudenes to Randolph, Aug. 15, 1794, in Jaudenes' No. 273 to Alcudia of Nov. 30, 1794, A. H. N., Est., Leg. 3895 bis. The instructions of Alcudia, on this subject, were dated at Aranjuez, May 9, 1794. Spanish Legation, Vol. 201.

12 Randolph to Short, Aug. 18, 1794, Instructions, II, 136–153.

sending of Thomas Pinckney to Madrid was regarded in the United States as an impressive diplomatic gesture made as a last chance of securing American rights by peace. 13 So far as any new facts then within the knowledge of the President and his advisers would indicate, we see that there was in November, 1794, when Pinckney's instructions were despatched, no more chance of success from an ostentatious special mission than there had been for several years past in the tiresome and unfruitful diplomacy of Carmichael and Short.14 Washington was not sure that Kentucky meanwhile could be kept from committing hostilities against Spanish authorities before the long-delayed Madrid negotiations could be brought to a successful close. But the Administration was not prepared to utilize this impatience, as Lafayette and Montmorin had once advised, for an offensive against Spain.15

13 The appointment of an envoy-extraordinary, as an impressive gesture when all other expedients had been exhausted, came to be a characteristic device of early American diplomacy.

14 Randolph by now had received Short's letters telling of the uneven relations between Spain and Great Britain, and of Toulon. The Secretary was inclined to discount this very considerably, believing that Spain could not collect confidence enough in the stability of French councils to be able to desert her ally for the arms of her enemy. Randolph to Short, Aug. 18, 1794, Instructions, II, 136-153.

15 This reluctance may have been due to some uncertainty of the situation in Kentucky arising out of the agitation of the Wilkinson conspirators. I do not believe that at any time the "Spanish Conspiracy" embodied more than a very few men. Those were persons of secondary importance. The Kentucky people were loyal to the United States, but easily stirred up to violence against Spain. Washington, however, was so anx

Pinckney, as we shall see, luckily reached Madrid after the diplomatic scene, unbeknown to the Government of the United States, had been shifted completely. Spain, for reasons of European politics, had suddenly reversed her policy. She then became anxious for a settlement of outstanding issues and for an actual alliance with the United States.

IV

What was the fate of the propositions for the President, which had left Madrid for Philadelphia on July 31, 1794?

ious about the Kentucky situation in the summer of 1794, that he sent to that state a special commissioner, Colonel James Innes, brother of Wilkinson's tool, Harry Innes, though not of the same ilk. Innes took with him copies of the whole diplomatic correspondence with Spain, for exhibition to the Governor and to the members of the legislature. The purpose of the mission was to fustrate any plot for separation which might exist, and to prevent the West from forcing the hand of the Government while the last resort to peaceful negotiations was being exhausted. Randolph to James Innes, Aug. 8, 1794 to the Governor of Kentucky, Aug. 15 and 25, 1794, Domestic Letters, VII, 180. Innes made a report to the Secretary of State on the Kentucky situation, but I have not been able to find it in the archives of the State Department or elsewhere. It would be a source of prime importance.

The Innes mission was prompted by petitions to the Congress and the President from the Kentucky Democratic Society, asking to see copies of the Madrid correspondence, and to be assured that every means was being taken by the federal government to secure the navigation of the Mississippi. See E. Merton Coulter, The Efforts of the West to Open the Navigation of the Mississippi, Miss. Valley Hist., Rev., XI, 381.

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