Peace abroad was necessary that the nations might suppress resistance at home. Washington in December, 1791, nominated Carmichael, then chargé d'affaires in Spain, and Mr. Short, then chargé in France, commissioners plenipotentiary to negotiate and conclude a treaty with Spain. The question of the Florida boundary and the navigation of the Mississippi were to be settled. In addition the treaty should provide for certain commercial advantages in the SpanishAmerican possessions. The commissioners were instructed along the lines already developed, but were cautioned that the treaty should neither expressly nor by implication concede any claim of Spain to the Mississippi: that this should be taken as a right and not as a grant from Spain: neither should any compensation be given for the navigation. If this was insisted on, it should be set off by the duties already paid at New Orleans and the claims for the detention of American shipping at that port. The commissioners did not meet at Madrid for a full year after their appointment.

At that time history was being made with incredible rapidity. The French, mad with the enthusiasm of liberty and license, and particularly hostile to the reigning houses of Europe, had started on their mission of carrying freedom to the oppressed and founding republics in all lands. As a likely field for this work the Spanish-American possessions did not long escape their attention and, further, had not Spain invited their loss by uniting with legitimate Europe to overthrow republican France? It came to the ears of Jefferson that France proposed to send a strong force early in the spring of 1793 to offer independence to the SpanishAmerican colonies beginning with those bordering on the Mississippi. To prevent any hostile feeling or demonstration on the part of the United States, she did not object to an arrangement by which the Spanish holdings on the east side of that river should be received into our confederation.

"Interesting considerations," writes Jefferson to Carmichael and Short, "require that we should keep ourselves free to act in this case according to circumstances, and consequently that you should not by any clause of treaty bind us to guarantee any of the Spanish colonies against their own independence nor indeed against any other nation. For when we thought we might guarantee Louisiana on their ceding Florida to us, we apprehended it would be seized by Great Britain, who would thus completely encircle us with her colonies and fleets. This danger is now removed by the concert between Great Britain and Spain and the times will soon enough give independence and consequent free commerce to our neighbors, without our risking the involving ourselves in a war for them."1 For Louisiana or the Floridas to fall into the possession of hostile England, it had been felt, would be ample ground for actual intervention on the part of the United States. In the hands of decadent and paralytic Spain it was thought that in time they would certainly gravitate into American possessions.

The commissioners met at Madrid about the first of February, 1793, but in the kaleidoscopic change of events circumstances were now vastly different from those which had induced their appointment. The ministerial power of Spain which had been transferred from Count d'Aranda, had again been shifted, and was now held by Godoy, the notorious libertine and paramour of the Spanish queen. The difficulty between England and Spain was settled and had been superseded by most friendly relations. The conciliatory attitude which Godoy had adopted towards France in the hope of saving the unfortunate King Louis was rudely destroyed by his decapitation. This change was soon followed by a French declaration of war against Spain, and

1. Vol. I, Instructions, p. 260. Jefferson to Carmichael and Short, March 23, 1793.

the American commissioners were thus deprived of the support upon which they had fondly relied from the only power in Europe able and willing to facilitate the negotiations. Even worse, the inevitable tendency of events led to an alliance between Spain and the combined enemies of France at whose head stood, hated and hating, England. The relations between England and the United States were most unfriendly and, at this very period, war between these two countries was considered imminent. Spain quickly concluded an alliance offensive and defensive with England, whose terms fully covered any contingency of hostilities with the United States. The commissioners realizing the unfortunate state of affairs wrote to Jefferson: "We cannot help considering it unfortunate that an express commission should have been sent to treat here." Surely circumstances had not conspired to give any hope of success.

Gardoqui, late Spanish minister to the United States, was appointed to conduct the negotiations. While here he had been thoroughly impressed with our weakness and the divided feeling on the Mississippi question, and was impervious to all arguments. The commissioners wisely determined not to press their case, and found this course quite agreeable to the ever dilatory and procrastinating policy of Spain. Instructions from Philadelphia directed them to proceed. They managed to reach Godoy but were unable to make any headway on the main points of their mission. They laid before him, however, certain complaints on the Spanish interference with the Indians along the southern border, and secured his promise, of whatever value they might have considered this, that Spain would not interfere in case the United States should declare war against the refractory redskins. Continued failure induced the dissolution of the commission, and Carmichael took his departure leaving Short at Madrid credited as chargé. He found much

difficulty in being either received or acknowledged, even in that capacity.

In the meantime the troublesome and autocratic Genet had landed in America and was proceeding in that autocratic and insulting course which ended in the demand for his recall. Taking every advantage of the popular enthusiasm then existing in favor of the French cause, he proceeded in defiance of international law and American sovereignty to fit out privateers and enlist volunteers for the French service. The French government had imposed upon him the double character of accredited diplomat and revolutionary propagandist. Intrigue in Kentucky and the South, and the conquest of Louisiana were the prime objects of his mission a point generally ignored in the treatment of this interesting character and his turbulent career in the United States. Arriving at Charleston in April, 1793, he energetically set about his prescribed tasks.

Ignoring Washington's proclamation of neutrality, Genet carried things with a high hand, confident of his success in an appeal to the people, if that became necessary. He approached Jefferson who, forbidding any attempt to involve American citizens, expressed indifference as to what insurrections might be excited in Louisiana, and even declared that a little spontaneous invasion would promote the interests of the United States. Expecting that America would soon be at war with Spain, our secretary of state may have deemed it wise not to cut himself off from an acquaintance with Genet's designs against the Spanish colonies, particularly since the movement was represented as nothing more than a plan to give independence to Louisiana.

Genet had two anti-Spanish projects on foot, one for a military expedition, to be organized in South Carolina and to rendezvous in Georgia, for the invasion of Florida, the other for a like expedition against New Orleans and Louis

iana, to be set on foot in Kentucky. French emissaries were freely employed, and for the Florida enterprise Governor Moultrie of South Carolina, General Elijah Clarke of Georgia, Samuel Hammond, and William Tate, all men of honor and standing in the South were speedily enlisted. The expedition under the command of General Clarke, according to the prospectus, was to be supported by the French fleet.

Plans for the conquest of Louisiana had been presented to the French authorities when the relations between France and Spain became strained, after the outbreak of the French Revolution, but the plan of expedition here attempted seems to have been proposed by George Rogers Clark, who had distinguished himself during our Revolutionary war by the conquest of the Illinois country, but who was now reduced to an equivocal position from the combined influence of intemperance and pecuniary embarrassment. In 1788, he had offered his services to Spain, for a land-grant, and was now even more ready to expatriate himself for France. Genet's agents and Clark, in Kentucky, actually undertook the procuring of supplies and boats and sought to interest the discontented Kentuckians in the scheme for securing the freedom of the Mississippi by replacing Spain at its mouth by the French Republic.

Unquestionably there existed in Kentucky highly inflammable materials. Her allegiance and patriotism had already been severely tested, and the refusal by Spain of the free navigation of the Mississippi was regarded as a great grievance and suspicions were generally entertained that no proper efforts had been made to secure it. George Rogers Clark declared that he could raise fifteen hundred men and the French at St. Louis, with the Americans at the Natchez would eagerly join his command. With the first fifteen hundred all Louisiana, beginning at St. Louis, could be won for France, and with the aid of two or