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CHAPTER IV.

WEST FLORIDA BETWEEN THE MOBILE AND THE MISSISSIPPI.

FOR

OR $15,000,000 the United States had purchased a province and a quarrel.

In the early spring of 1804 congress passed an act, “For laying and collecting duties on Imports and Tonnage within the Territory ceded to the United States by Treaty of April 30, 1803, between the United States and the French Republic, and for other purposes." The eleventh section of this act read: "And be it further enacted that the president be, and hereby is, authorized, whenever he shall deem it expedient to erect the Shores, Waters and Inlets of the Bay and River Mobile and of the other Rivers, Creeks, Inlets and Bays emptying into the Gulf of Mexico, east of the said River Mobile and west thereof to the Pascagoula, inclusive, into a separate District and to establish such place within the same, as he shall deem expedient, to be the Port of Entry and Delivery for such District and to designate such other Places within the same District not exceeding two, to be Ports of Delivery, only. Whenever such separate District shall be erected, a collector shall be appointed to reside at each of the Ports of Delivery which may be established, etc." The indignant D'Yrujo, Gazette in hand, penned in burning words a letter to Madison on what he had at first believed to be an "atrocious libel against the government of this country," but which he now unhesitatingly declared as "one of the greatest insults which one power can be guilty of

towards another"

words scarcely diplomatic but full of feeling withal. "How could I expect," he wrote, "that the American government which prides itself so much on its good faith, which is so zealous in the preservation and defense of its own rights would have violated with all the solemnity of a legislative act those of the king, my master, by usurping his sovereignty?1. . . What would have been the sensations of the people of America if, soon after the treaty made by Spain with the United States, in the year 1795, by which the boundary line between the territory of the two powers was fixed at the 31° of latitude, the king, my master, had authorized any of his chief officers in America to divide a part of Georgia into districts and to establish custom houses in various points of them, simply because it was imagined that the territory in which he chose to place them belonged to that portion which would remain to him. according to the boundary line which had not then been drawn?

"The right which the United States arrogate of legislating in the territories mentioned in the said eleventh section is not better founded than would be that of his Catholic Majesty to have made laws in the former instance for a great part of Georgia. But even if the treaty of the thirtieth of April had given any ground or appearance of foundation for the establishment of such pretensions it was natural that the United States from a sentiment of justice, of delicacy and of that decorum and respect which nations owe to each other, should have proceeded by the ordinary way of negotiation to clear up their doubts and to establish their conduct upon a basis which would not be in contradiction to their principles.

"The congress however, so far from observing the established usages in cases of this nature, proceeds at once to a decision and not only authorizes the president to exe

1. Vol. I, D'Yrujo to Secretary of State, March 7, 1804.

cute certain acts in West Florida which indisputably belongs to the king, my master, but expresses this in such vague and indefinite terms that the president may consider himself authorized by the said act to annex a part of East Florida to the district of which mention is made in the eleventh section and to place a collector of the customs in Apalache or Pensacola. . . . The authority given to the president is unlimited, east of the River Mobile, and comprehends indirectly the power of declaring or rather making war since it is not to be presumed that any nation will patiently permit another to make laws within its territories without its consent.

"If the act on the part of the United States of legislating in the possessions enumerated in the above mentioned section be a real insult towards the king, my master, even if there could exist any doubts as to the true limits of Louisiana acquired by the treaty of the thirtieth of April last, how much greater must that offense appear when there does not exist any well-founded reason by which the United States can establish any pretensions to West Florida."

The right to West Florida and the merits of the respective claims of the United States and Spain to that province have been an academic question for a century

even after

its practical settlement by the treaty of 1819 - nor does the issue seem to have been satisfactorily determined, though one hundred years have rolled by since first it arose. It may be permissible then to take up and weigh the various arguments which have been presented, in an effort to reach the truth of the matter or rather to ascertain the merits of the case.

When, under Washington, the matter was first broached, the desideratum of this nation was the Floridas and New Orleans the territory east of the Mississippi and south of our then southern boundary. And when Jefferson opened the negotiations with Napoleon for a purchase, it was not

the province of Louisiana but rather New Orleans and the Floridas that he wished to secure. The fact that Spain had not ceded the Floridas was only later known to the United States. The correspondence of Jefferson clearly shows that his idea was that by securing New Orleans and the Floridas the United States would possess a well rounded national domain east of the Mississippi. Therefore, we must conclude that Jefferson began the negotiation with the idea that the territory of West Florida extended to the Mississippi with 31° latitude for its northern boundary, as settled in the Spanish-American treaty of 1795. Had it been understood that West Florida extended only to the Perdido, Jefferson should and would have given instructions to negotiate for the purchase of both Floridas, New Orleans. and that part of Louisiana east of the Mississippi and between that river and the Perdido.

We will further recall that Napoleon made several unsuccessful attempts to persuade Spain to cede the Floridas to him after he had secured Louisiana by the treaty of San Ildefonso and a minister, General Bournonville, was sent to Madrid for that express purpose. Among other things the duchy of Parma was offered in exchange, but to the United States was attributed the failure of the negotiation. From the extent of the seacoast, the number of good harbors and the situation of the Floridas, France, owning Louisiana, was anxious also to possess those provinces. 1

No definite limits had been stated in our treaty of purchase because they were not known. But the United States construed the treaty in the manner most favorable to itself - a disposition as natural among nations as among individuals. At the time of the delivery of the province of Louisiana at New Orleans, orders were obtained from the Spanish authorities for the delivery of all the posts on the west side

1. Vol. VI, Instructions, p. 226, Madison to Livingston, March 81, 1804.

of the Mississippi as well as the island of New Orleans. With respect to the posts in West Florida orders for the delivery were neither offered to nor demanded by our commissioners. The defense of our side of the dispute together with a statement of our claims is clearly and succinctly given in a letter from Madison to Livingston. We can do no better than to quote therefrom at length.

"This silence on the part of the executive was deemed eligible first because it was foreseen that the demand. would not only be rejected by the Spanish authority at New Orleans which had in an official publication limited the cession eastwardly by the Mississippi and the island of New Orleans, but it was apprehended, as has turned out, that the French commissioner might not be ready to support the demand and might even be disposed to second the Spanish opposition. Secondly because in the latter of these cases a serious check would be given to our title and in either of them a premature dilemma would result between an overt submission to the refusal and a resort to force. Thirdly because mere silence would be no bar to a plea at any time that a delivery of a part, particularly at the seat of government was a virtual delivery of the whole, whilst in the meantime, we could ascertain the views and claim the interposition of the French government and avail ourselves of that and any other favorable circumstances for effecting an amicable adjustment of Spain.

"The territory ceded to the United States is described in the words following, 'the colony or province of Louisiana with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, that it had when France possessed it and such as it ought to be according to the treaties subsequently passed between Spain and other states.'

In expounding this threefold description, the different forms used must be so understood as to give a meaning to each description, and to make the meaning of each coincide

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