Relations with Spain. but I promise myself, from your good faith, that you will not fail, without loss of time, to communicate the contents of my note to your Government, that this new and unexpected obstacle which presents itself to the course of the pending negotiation may be removed. Led, no doubt, by the same desire which animates me, to arrive at the wished-for arrangement, you have believed that there could be no difficulty in the continuation of the pending negotiations, whatever may have been the nature of the occurrences in the Floridas; and in support of this opinion, you are pleased to add, that inasmuch as the negotiation was not interrupted in consequence of any of the acts committed in former times by the Spanish authorities against the property and persons of American citizens, so neither ought it to be suspended in this case on account of the aforesaid events, of whatever nature they may have been. But I ask you to consider what an immense difference there is between the two cases. Partial violence or injustice, if it did take place against one or more individuals and their property, although it may indirectly fall upon and touch the Government to which they belong, and authorize it to set up claims, and even to ask indemnity, is not in any manner equal to the direct offence which is offered to the majesty of a Sovereign, and that of the nation he governs, when his territory is invaded by an armed force, his fortified towns besieged and taken, and their garrisons made prisoners of war. These acts, essentially hostile, do not admit of any other explanation than the disapprobation of the conduct of the military chief who has committed them, and the evacuation of the invaded territory; and unless this is first done, it is incompatible with decorum and the dignity of the offended nation to continue other negotiations; for these are acts of political friendship, which must necessarily, at least, be very much cooled by the aforesaid excesses, until the Governments come to an understanding upon a point which is preliminary to friendship. If the United States have continued the negotiations, notwithstanding any particular acts of violence which may have occurred, and for which the King has never refused to make satisfaction by legitimate means, Spain has given no less proofs of moderation on her part, by continuing the negotiations notwithstanding the invasion of West Florida in 1810, of the island of Amelia more recently, and the immense damages which the commerce and the subjects of Spain have sustained in consequence of the armaments made in the ports of the United States, in contravention of the laws of nations and the existing treaty. Without renouncing (for His Majesty never can renounce) the just claims and rights which he holds to be manifest on these points, he has continued the negotiation, although prompt justice has not been done to him on them; because the circumstances under which some of them took place may, without committing, in any great degree, the dignity of his august character, give room to hope for the arrangement of the whole of them, in the final decision of pending affairs. It is not so with the recent aggression which took place in the midst of peace and of negotiations; it was unprovoked, and was committed upon a territory to which the United States have never set up the least pretension, well or ill-founded; and was the act of a considerable corps of the army, which, with all the apparatus of war, proceeded to besiege the forts, and to make prisoners of their small garrisons, who, in the confidence of peace. could only have been suspicious of an attack from some party of savage Indians. The circumstance of His Majesty's having offered to the United States to exchange the Floridas for a reasonable equivalent, far from exculpating the irregular conduct of General Jackson, as you suppose, contributes to aggravate it beyond measure; because it is the height of violence and of insult to seize by force the very thing which, by legal and honorable means, through an exchange mutually beneficial, might have been promptly and easily obtained. His Majesty hopes, then, that the Government of the United States, on seeing the representation made to you by me, and that which will have been likewise made by his Minister at Washing. ton, will disapprove the conduct of General Jackson, and give orders for the evacuation of the Spanish territory; not only because the dignity of the King and the laws of nations require it, but on account of the interest which the American Government must feel in sustaining before the world the opinion of its good faith, by preserving without a stain that reputation which is as essential to Governments as to individuals. While this hope lasts, I shall have no objection to continue discussions with you upon all or any one of the points of the pending negotiation, as I have indicated in my other note of this date; but if the American Government, on being informed as to the conduct of General Jackson in Florida, should not disapprove it, by causing the territory of His Majesty to be evacuated, I do not see by what mode the prior and preliminary nature of this new occurrence can be conciliated with further discussions and negotiations, until that incident is terminated in a manner proper and corresponding with the character and dignity of both Governments. I renew to you the assurances, &c. JOSE PIZARRO. Don Jose Pizarro to Mr. Erving. PALACE, August 6, 1818. SIR: In your two esteemed notes of the 24th and 27th ultimo, you were pleased to reply to mine of the 19th, relative to the guaranty of His Majesty's possessions, formally offered by Mr. Pinckney, Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States, and on their behalf, in the event of His Majesty's agreeing to sell or cede in any other manner to the United States the two Floridas, or that part of West Florida lying between the Mississippi and the Mobile. Relations with Spain. The said cession being one of the objects of the pending negotiation which His Majesty contemplated making to the United States in consideration of a just equivalent, it was very natural that he should recur to the offer made to him by the American Government in this contingency, the accomplishment of which would tend to remove many difficulties, as affording an unequivocal proof that the United States still preferred those conciliatory dispositions which had produced that spontaneous offer on the part of the United States, and wholly unsolicited by His Majesty. In replying to your note, it is not my intention to trouble you by engaging in a discussion of the opinion you have advanced, that the guaranty offered applied only to West Louisiana; and I shall merely recall to your attention that, in the year 1803, when more than three years had elapsed since the retrocession of Louisiana to France, this fact was so universally known that no one, either in Europe or America, could be ignorant of it. In addition to the treaty of 1800, a public and solemn act had been issued, under the sign-manual of His Majesty, in 1802, for the delivery of the colony to France; all the acts and publications of the Congress of the United States of the same year, (1802,) and the commencement of 1803, were full of the same subject; and the arrival of Mr. Monroe in Europe, for the purpose of purchasing the colony of the French Government, was matter of notoriety. How, then, could a public character, in the situation of Mr. Pinckney, be ignorant of a fact constantly referred to in the correspondence of his Government, and familiar to every one, even moderately conversant with politics, who would read the gazettes of the day? It is therefore beyond a doubt that Mr. Pinckney knew that Louisiana belonged to France, and that the guaranty offered by him to His Majesty was that of his possessions on the continent of North America beyond the Mississippi, or to the westward of Louisiana-a guaranty the more interesting at that period, as the establishment on that continent of a great Power, like that of France, was the motive which appeared to give greater importance to the acquisition of the Floridas by the United States, and to the guaranty offered to Spain, as part of their purchase of them. The contradiction which you conceive exists between this explanation and the terms employed in Mr. Pinckney's offer, is, in my judgment, entirely without foundation. All your difficulty consists in the inquiry, what were the places on the Mississippi that Mr. Pinckney might demand of Spain, which did not form part of Louisiana? or what was pointed out by him in the phrase certain tracts of country on the banks of the Mississippi ?" &c. To which I reply that they were Manchac, Baton Rouge, and the whole left bank of the river from Manchac to the river Iberville, which communicates with the lakes Maurepas, Pontchartrain, and Borgne. You likewise inquire what were the rivers which rise in 66 the United States, and run through the Spanish territory? I reply that Mr. Pinckney pointed out, or, to speak more properly, expressly named, all those between the Mississippi and the Mobile, which rise beyond the thirty-first degree, and empty into the Gulf of Mexico, namely, the Amite, the Pearl, the Pascagoula, and the Mobile itself, together with other smaller intermediary streams. The territory watered by them was that which Mr. Pinckney wished to purchase of Spain at the time that Mr. Monroe was negotiating the purchase of Louisiana at Paris. This was, and is, the territory forming part of West Florida, as admitted by Mr. Pinckney; it is that which is expressly declared by the American geographer, Mr. Ellicott, to belong to His Catholic Majesty after the acquisition of Louisiana by the United States; and it is that which Spain continued in possession of, even after the delivery of Louisiana to France and to the United States, until she was violently dispossessed of it in 1810, during His Majesty's absence. What is stated in Mr. Pinckney's letter, in relation to the proceedings of the Intendant at New Orleans, by no means proves that that Minister understood that Louisiana was still to continue in the possession of Spain, as it merely referred to a fact connected with the actual possession and exercise of jurisdiction, which Spain still preserved so long as the delivery of the colony to France was not actually carried into execution. These points being established in relation to the aforementioned guaranty, its objects, and circumstances, His Majesty's attention has necessarily been called to the positive certainty which you appear to lay down in your answer, that the United States will not agree to any kind of guaranty, notwithstanding the offer above referred to; and to the demand you seem to advance, as a preliminary condition of your stating your ideas on the establishment of the intermediary desert or neutral territory between the possessions of the two countries, that His Majesty shall renounce all further pretensions in relation to the said guaranty. The offer of it, as I have had the honor repeatedly to state, having been voluntarily made on the part of the United States, in contemplation of an event now under consideration, and it being one of the means best calculated to promote a final adjustment, His Majesty has also charged his Minister in the United States to negotiate with their Government upon that point. It therefore appears to be unseasonable to give up this pretension, which you seem to require to enable you to explain yourself upon other points wholly unconnected with it; and, as I have not expressed to you that the said guaranty is to be a condition sine qua non of the definitive arrangement, although your Government objects to it, I do not at present see any inconvenience in your explaining yourself at once upon other points, as I have already invited you to do in my note of the 19th ultimo, without prejudice to what may be agreed upon between Don Relations with Spain. Luis de Onis and the American Government, as well in respect to the said guaranty as to the other objects of the negotiation. States) possessing a suitable establishment on that river," meaning the Mississippi. Here also he alludes to New Orleans, or, if not, to other points within the territory of Louisiana. Now, though it should be allowed that Mr. Pinckney, as well as Mr. Ellicott, had fallen into the error of supposing that, after the cession of Louisiana to France, the whole of West Florida yet be I persuade myself that, in the present communication, as well as in those which have preceded it, you will discover fresh proofs of His Majesty's desire to conclude an arrangement upon terms mutually satisfactory; and I seize this opportunity of renewing to you the assur-longed to Spain, neither he nor Mr. Ellicott ances of my distinguished respect. I pray God to preserve you many years. JOSE PIZARRO. Mr. Erving to Don Jose Pizarro. MADRID, August 9, 1818. SIR: On the evening of the 7th, I had the honor to receive your excellency's two notes of the 6th instant. It is not my intention to call in question the importance of those circumstances which you enumerate as of a nature to have rendered universally notorious, in 1803, the cession of Louisiana to France in 1800; but not having in my hands the correspondence of Mr. Pinckney with the Government of the United States, from which I might be able to ascertain what knowledge he may have had on the subject; to what an extent and at what period he was instructed relative to the proposals which he made to Cevallos, I have been forced to conclude that such notoriety had not reached him, or that he was not aware of the true boundaries of Louisiana. It may have been, also, that notwithstanding the treaty of 1800, and notwithstanding the royal cedula of 1802, that Minister may have doubted in 1803 of the bona fide transfer to France, seeing that the colony then still remained under the Government of Spain. It is only by such suppositions that I can account for his proposing to purchase of Spain territories which had been ceded to France, and to guaranty territories of His Catholic Majesty on the west of the Mississippi, which could be no other than Louisiana; it not being possible for me to imagine that he intended any country beyond Louisiana, much less all the vast colonies of Spain. I beg your excellency to observe, that it nowhere appears in Mr. Pinckney's communication that the acquisition made by France had given, as you conjecture, importance in the mind of that Minister to the acquisition sought for by the United States: on the contrary, he is very explicit in the motives which he assigns for his offer; these arose out of the misconduct of the Intendant at New Orleans, which had confirmed an opinion previously entertained in the United States, that it was absolutely necessary for them to acquire some permanent establishment on the east side of the Mississippi, or on the Mobile. To that end Mr. Pinckney asks for the whole of His Majesty's possessions to the eastward of the Mississippi, or for what is "between that river and the Mobile." This proposal includes New And, again, he speaks of the "indispensable necessity of their (the United Orleans of course. could have supposed that, after such cession, New Orleans belonged to Spain, or, indeed, any other such point on the Mississippi as Mr. Pinckney sought to obtain. The replies of your excellency to these questions of mine, which you consider as constituting the principal force of my argument, but which offer to you no difficulty, only prove that our opinions, as to what districts are comprised within the limits of Louisiana, are at variance; and since they prove nothing more, I may be excused from now entering into the various reasonings by which either Government has supported its pretensions. 66 Your excellency supposes that Mr. Pinckney's negotiation was concurrent with that contemplated, and then on the point of being made, with the French Government, for the purchase of Louisiana; that it was therefore he sought to procure "places of deposite on the mouths of navigable rivers" passing through the Floridas. But, Louisiana purchased of France, Mr. Pinckney's great purpose to "secure to the citizens of one-half of the United States the certain means of exporting their products" was obtained. He wanted a permanent establishment" on the Mississippi; he could not have desired a better than New Orleans. It was not by the acquisition of points of entrepot on such streams as the Amite, the Pearl, and the Pascagoula, and those intermediate, which are too diminutive to find a place on the chart, or a name, that Mr. Pinckney could have thought of effecting his object, "to secure to the citizens of one-half of the United States the certain means of exporting their products;" these were not the "navigable rivers" which he spoke of; he could not be desirous of obtaining these little spots, while Mr. Monroe was purchasing at Paris real entrepots, rich ter ritories on both the banks of the Mississippi, rivers which come some hundred leagues from the interior, which may carry on their capacious surfaces the products, not of America only, but of the whole world; while the United States were acquiring, in fine, (according to their construction,) the very territory in which the abovementioned rivulets as well as the more important Mobile run. But whatever may have been Mr. Pinckney's knowledge of the then state of affairs, whatever were his views or offers, his plan of a guaranty was not reproduced in the negotiation which soon afterwards took place at Aranjuez, by the special mission of which he was a member; the actual negotiations are but a renewal of that which then failed. If the United States then abstained from offering, or refused to give a guaranty, a fortiori, Relations with Spain. they will do so now. Under no circumstances whatever could the offer made by Mr. Pinckney, not accepted at the time, have been binding upon the United States, or have formed a rule for its conduct in subsequent negotiations; much less can that offer be admitted to consideration at this day, under a total change of circumstances and of relative possession in the territories which were then the subject of negotiation. make any such proposals for a general arrange. ment of the points in discussion specified in Mr. Adams's letter to Mr. Onis of January 16th as I am authorized to accept, I shall adopt them without hesitation; but if, from whatever cause, your excellency should not be disposed to offer such proposals, then I entreat you, considering the great importance of the matter, and the delicacy of my situation in regard to it, as explained to Your excellency seems surprised at the confi- you on a similar occasion last year, that you dence with which I assure you that the United would be pleased to make to me such an explicit States will not give any guaranty of any part of communication as will enable me to show to my His Majesty's possessions. I beg your excellency Government, with as little delay as possible, that to be persuaded that I have not spoken at hazard. it is out of my power to conclude a treaty here. I am perfectly certain that no such guaranty will To give to your excellency the most convincbe given, upon any consideration whatever; and, ing proof of my earnestness to contribute as far therefore, nothing was more reasonable than that, as possible to the desired object, I will accede to in treating with you, I should pretend to have it your instances by stating, in precise terms, my altogether excluded from our view. In the pres- proposal of the desert which I first suggested to ent state of the negotiation, after it has been re- you in our conferences of the 3d and 5th July, peatedly transferred and retransferred from Mad-after your excellency had assured me of His rid to Washington, it were, on my part, worse Majesty's intention to ratify the convention of than a waste of time to encourage a discussion 1802. That important point being settled, and, on an article which I know to be in any form at the same time, His Majesty's dispositions to inadmissible. It would be a procrastination al- cede his possessions to the east of the Missismost criminal in this most pressing and difficult sippi for a reasonable equivalent being announced, crisis of our affairs; nor would it comport with the it appeared to me that the remaining reclamasincerity which has marked all my communica- tions of the United States might easily be adtions with your excellency, since, as no reason justed in the "transaction;" and, therefore, that for taking the guaranty into consideration in the the only real existing difficulty was to establish year 1818 can be derived from what the Minister the boundary on the west, between the possesof the United States proposed in the year 1803, sions of His Majesty and those of the United even "voluntarily," in "the most plain terms," States; or, in other words, to determine the exor by the express orders of his Government, such tent of territory east of the Rio del Norte to be a course, far from facilitating a general arrange- ceded to His Majesty. The line of the Coloment, as you have supposed, could not but retard rado appeared to be objectionable to His Mait, and might possibly so retard it as to be fatal jesty's Government, without a guaranty, such as to it. Your excellency ought, then, to conclude it is impossible for the United States to give. I that the answer which will be given to His Ma- proposed to substitute for it what I considered as jesty's Minister on this point will, in substance, better for Spain-a barrier between its possesconform to that which I have given; and since, sions and those of the United States. I now as you inform me, the guaranty is not made a sine propose, then, that the desert, which is to form qua non by His Majesty's Government, I trust this barrier, be of thirty leagues breadth; that is, that it will be altogether put aside. fifteen leagues on the right bank, and fifteen leagues on the left bank of the Colorado, and extending in length from the mouth of that river as high up towards its source as the thirty-second degree of latitude. If Spain should not consider it necessary that the desert should be as broad as thirty leagues, she may diminish it on her own side of the river as much as she may judge fit. Within the desert no persons shall be admitted to settle or establish themselves; and each party may establish military posts on its own portion of the desert for the purpose of keeping off intruders or settlers of any kind. Your excellency's other note, respecting the conduct of General Jackson, I shall hasten to transmit to my Government, together with your note of 26th July on the same subject. Though I should allow all force to the distinction which your excellency makes between this case and those acts of His Majesty's viceroys, and other officers in America, of which the Government of the United States and its citizens have had such frequent reasons to complain, and though it should not be allowed that an accumulation of such wrongs makes a case as strong as can be stated, yet it would suffice to show that, amongst the acts referred to, could be found at any time pretexts for breaking off negotiation; and this would not be difficult. The moderation and conciliatory policy of the American Government has been put to the severest trials; but, far from desiring to make out such acts a plea for discontinuing negotiation, they seem to me to press upon us the necessity of hastening to its conclusion. If, then, your excellency is now prepared to This proposal, which originates in a sincere desire on my part to meet as nearly as possible the views of your excellency, I hope may prove acceptable to His Majesty's Government; but, in making it, I must at the same time beg leave to state, explicitly, that in case it should not be accepted, and become the means, as I trust it will, of enabling us to settle by treaty, to be now made here, all the other points in discussion, then it cannot be recurred to or have any force in Relations with Spain. future negotiations, either here or at Washing- GEORGE W. ERVING. Don Jose Pizarro to Mr. Erving. PALACE, August 11, 1818. The letters of Don Luis de Onis, under date of 20th June last, assure us that it was publicly known in the United States, and inserted in the gazettes of that country, that General Jackson, continuing his hostile incursions within the territory of His Majesty in the Floridas, had taken by assault the fortified town (plaza) of Pensacola, whose small garrison, it is said, did its duty and preserved the honor of the King's arms, by forcibly resisting, as far as it was possible for it to do, the unjust and unexpected aggressor. Although, as yet, no direct information has been received from the Floridas respecting these disagreeable events, no doubt now remains that General Jackson, trampling under foot all laws, has committed in the territory of His Majesty outrages and excesses of which there are few examples in the civilized world. It will one day or other be stated with surprise, that the theatre of such devastation and unprovoked offence, in the midst of peace, was the very same on which Spain, not many years since, shed her blood and poured out her treasures for the United States, in the days of their calamity. ment of the United States will not refuse an act of justice so becoming its good faith; and I send to you this exposition, to the end that you may transmit it to your Government in connexion with those which preceded it, and with the same object. I renew to you the assurances of my most distinguished consideration, &c. JOSE PIZARRO. Mr. Erving to Don Jose Pizarro. MADRID, August 14, 1818. SIR: I have had the honor to receive your excellency's note of the 11th instant, containing the information which you have received from His Majesty's Minister in the United States, respecting an assault made on the place of Pensacola by General Jackson, and communicating to me the orders which His Majesty has consequently given to that Minister. I shall not lose a moment in transmitting to my Government a copy of your excellency's note, having already despatched your two former communications relative to the anterior proceedings of General Jackson. I renew to your excellency assurances of my distinguished consideration. GEORGE W. ERVING. Don Jose Pizarro to Mr. Erving. PALACE, August 29, 1818. SIR: A continuation of disagreeable intelligence on the nature and circumstances of the late events in the Floridas, and on the hostile proceedings of the American General, Jackson, and the troops under his command, within the limits of those provinces belonging to His Majesty, has been received at this office. In addition to the facts to which I called your attention in my notes of 26th July and 6th and 11th instant, I have now before me a copy of the capitulation which appears to have resulted from the hostilities committed by the General before the place of Pensacola, in consequence of which the Spanish garrison has been sent to Havana. After what I have had the honor of stating to you in my notes of the 26th of last, and 6th of the present month, in consequence of the first hostilities and excesses of General Jackson in the Floridas, I will only now add, that, in consequence of the occurrence at Pensacola, the King has commanded me to communicate to his Minister in Washington the most express orders that, at the same time he presents to the Government there the most solemn protest, in the name of His In my former notes I had the honor to state to Majesty, against the invasion of the Floridas, you that, notwithstanding the particular characand against the taking of the forts of St. Mark ter of violence which appears to have marked and Pensacola by the American troops, he should the operations of General Jackson from his first solicit that the things be placed in the same state movements in Florida, His Majesty, willing to and situation in which they were before the in-attribute those acts to the arbitrary conduct of vasion; and that the artillery, munitions, and that officer, was persuaded that the Government effects which were found in St. Mark's and Pen- of the United States would not hesitate to disapsacola at the time of their surrender, should be prove, as soon as they should be informed of delivered to the Spanish governors of that terri- them, and that, in consequence, suitable orders tory; that reparation be made by the American would be given, not only for the evacuation of the Government for what may have been destroyed invaded territory, but also for the indemnity of in them, and that it be accountable for the dam- all injuries sustained, and the restoration of the ages and injuries occasioned by the said aggres-property belonging as well to the Spanish Govsions; and I have likewise, by royal order, ap. prized the said Don Luis de Onis that he should give advice of the result of these proceedings without delay, that it may be known to His Majesty. The King persuades himself that the Govern ernment as to its subjects, and likewise that of foreigners then under the protection of His Majesty's Government. It was not to be presumed, without offering an insult to the good faith of the American Government, that they would delay to give this satisfaction to a friendly Power, |