Slike strani
PDF
ePub

fon, Efq. the district attorney for Georgia, reciting a passage in a letter from the Spanish minifter, dated the 21st of April, declaring his pofitive knowledge, that the English had made propolitions to General Clarke of Georgia, to obtain his influence in that ftate, in conjunction with fome perfons who might make a diverfion or serious attack against Florida. By Mr. Jackson's anfwer, from which an extract is herewith prefented, it appears that, after diligent inquiry, he could not find any perfon that knew any thing of the bufinefs, or that entertained a belief of the kind; and that, from General Clarke's known violent antipathy to the English, and other circumftances, he doubted the truth altogether. On the 30th ult. I received a letter from General Pinckney, dated the 9th of May, which contains the late intelligence from him, and feems proper to accompany the other papers now laid before you. His letter, therein referred to, has not yet come to hand.

Letter to Timothy Pickering, Efq. Secretary of State, from the Chevalier de Trujo, Minifter Plenipotentiary of his Catholic Majefty, &c.

Sir,

YOUR additional report to the Prefident of the United States of the proceedings of the officers of the King of Spain, in relation to the pofts and the running of the boundary line, which I find published in all the newspapers, obliges me to trouble you with this letter. If your difcuffion of facts has been as correct and impartial as there was reason to expect, I fhould not have been under the neceflity of undertaking this tafk; but the conftruction you are pleased to put upon every' act of the Spanish officers in general, and efpecially upon thofe in which I am perfonally concerned, compels me to obferve upon feveral expreffions which I have noticed in your faid report.

You begin, Sir, with faying, "that although I had declared I had just reafons for fufpecting an expedition from Canada was preparing by the British against the upper parts of Louifiana, yet I never had mentioned a fingle fact or reafon on which my fufpicion was founded." In my letter of the 2d of March I pointed out to you the probable, route which the expedition would take; and in our conference of the 27th of February I gave you information that a corps of three hundred and fifty men had been raifed at Montreal, and marched towards the lakes, where, after the evacuation of the American forts, there was no oftenfible objea for them. I alfo told you, that I knew that the British agents had treated with fome of the Indian nations in that country, cancerning the intended expedition; and I added, that I had received VOL. VII.

X

thofe

thofe advices from a perfon who might be depended on, who had feen those new levies paffing through Johnftown, on their way to the weftward. But, even fuppofing that I had not entered into any particulars, even fuppofing that my information at that period was not complete, yet did not the intereft and dignity of this government-did not its friendly connexion with, Spain, require that it fhould have taken every proper means to prevent the attempt we were threatened with, by giving fuitable orders to General Wilkinson, or to the commanding officer of the military force on thofe frontiers? The abfolute filence in this particular of the documents which accompany the report of the fecretary of war, your never having communicated to me any determinate difpofition on this point, as you do in your answer to my letter, which in the. publication is marked No. 7, afford me fufficient grounds to fear that thefe precautions were omitted.-You add, Sir, with a degree of candour difficult to be conceived, that from my not having given to you detailed information refpecting the expedition, and from the answer which you received on the 19th ultimo from the British minifter, you believed my fufpicions to be groundless. Is it poffible, that any one will candidly imagine, that if the English intended to violate the territory of the United States, in order to effect a coup de main, they would be as ingenuous in answering, as you were in afking their minifters the question?

I fhall not enter into all the obfervations which suggest themfelves to my mind, from your having communicated to Mr. Lifton the contents of my letters. I expected that the American government would have watched his motions, and taken the means which I have already mentioned to prevent the fuccefs of a fimilar enterprise; but I never could have imagined that you would have given to the British minifter a piece of advice, which might enable him to alter his plan, by letting him know that the former one was difcovered. By the line of conduct which you have pursued in this business, I am convinced, that, had I communicated to you more particular details refpecting this tranfaction, you would, with the fame good-natured franknefs, have given information of them to Mr. Lifton.

But, if you did believe that afking this queftion of the British envoy was the most efficacious means to prevent the violation of the neutrality of the United States, and the invafion of the Spanish territory, let me afk, why you was fo remifs in this meafure, that although I had communicated this project to you, verbally, on the 27th of February, and on the 2d of March in writing, yet, in a matter obviously fo improper, you only wrote to the British envoy on the 28th of April, that is, two months afterwards?

I fhall not quit this fubject without taking the liberty of making to you one obfervation which is intimately connected with it. By the date of the letter I have juft mentioned, it evi

dently

dently appears that I gave you advice of this intended expedition on the 2d of March, and that, three days before, I had given you the fame information verbally. I imagined, from your known attention to business, and the importance of the fubject, that you would have fubmitted it immediately to the confideration of the Prefident of the United States. On the 9th of March I had the honour of fpeaking to Mr. Adams, at his lodgings at Francis's Hotel, and mentioned this fubject as a matter that I fuppofed him already fully informed of; and it was with no fmall furprise I heard him fay that he knew nothing about it. I produced the map which I had in my pocket-book, and he liftened with great attention to all that I had to fay to him. It was, no doubt, to this conference with Mr. Adams that I was indebted for your anfwer of the 11th of the fame month. I fhall entirely abstain from putting any conftruction upon the reasons which induced you to ommit making this communication to the Prefident; but they must have been very powerful motives which could oblige you to remain fo long filent on a matter of fuch importance.

You fay, in the third paragraph of your report, that on your afking me what measures Spain had taken in order to carry into execution that part of the treaty which relates to the withdrawing the garrifons, I answered you on the 17th of April, that I had been for fome months without receiving letters from the Baron, and confequently "was entirely ignorant of the fsteps which had been taken for the execution of the treaty."-From this expreffion, which, in order to draw attention, you place between inverted commas, you infinuate an inference which, in my opinion, is very far from being true, when you add immediately afterwards, "Nevertheless, he had previously informed the Baron of his fufpicions of a projected expedition."-What is this to prove, Sir? That the Baron indeed had received my letters, but not that I had received his. The irregularity and uncertainty of navigation eafily shows that your logic on this point is extremely false.

In the fifth paragraph, after giving an account of my letter of the 24th ultimo, and of its object, you obferve that I have omitted. to mention, among the other complaints of the Baron, that of Mr. Ellicott's not having given him notice of his arrival at Natchez.-Permit me, Sir, to represent to you, that you have entirely mistaken what I had the honour of telling you on that occafion; for I fimply mentioned, not as a complaint, but as mere obfervation, that the Baron, in the rigour, might not have confidered Mr. Ellicott as an American commiffioner, he not having given him on his arrival official notice of his appointment, having merely informed him of it in the way of a confidential communication. You cannot be ignorant, Sir, that there are certain requifite formalities when nations treat with one another of their mutual concerns, which are not required between indiX 2 viduals.

viduals. The Baron, when he fpeaks in this manner, clearly points out his meaning, that, befides the confidential letter, the communication of which you confider as fo important, no doubt he expected another official one, including his commission, authority, or fome other document, to afcertain the identity of the perfon, and the object of his miffion. When, on my arrival in this country, I had not yet prefented my credentials to the Prefident, although I had delivered to you a copy of them, you might, in the rigour, not have recognised me as the envoy extraordinary of the King my mafter, for want of having complied with that neceffary requifite of the established etiquette. I do not mean to fay, that in the prefent cafe it was abfolutely neceffary to go through a fimilar formality; nor did the Baron mention this but as a mere matter of obfervation, which was not to affect the object in question, although you, thinking that it affords you a victorious argument, are pleased to give to this circumstance an importance which it does not deferve. Befides, Sir, I might obferve to you, that when, after a mixed and defultory converfation upon various fubjects, I had collected and methodized my ideas, and committed them to writing, your anfwer and obfervations ought to have been confined to the written communication, clothed with all the neceffary formalities; but neither do I with to make of this an object of difcuffion.

The proof which you give in the fixth paragraph of your report, to fhow that it is not certain that Mr. Ellicott intended to get poffeffion of Natchez by furprife, and that for that purpose he had endeavoured to gain over the inhabitants, is merely negative. From your examination of the two perfons you mention, you had very little to expect: the circumftance alone of their being the bearers of Mr. Ellicott's difpatches, points out that they were both in his confidence; and it may be prefumed without temerity, that, being his friends, or employed under his orders, they would hardly make a denunciation that might be prejudicial to him. Governor Gayofo declares that he has proofs of the fact in his power. I fhall not fail to apply to him for them, and perhaps I may one day fpeak to you more pofitively on this business.

After having difcuffed the hiftory of thefe tranfactions with all the force and accuracy which refult from thefe obfervations, you affure, with a very ill grounded confidence, that, upon a view of the whole, it appears that his Majefty's governors on the Miffifippi have, on various pretences, poftponed the running of the boundary line, and the evacuation of the pofts. But I appeal to that candour which you have fo generously shown to the British minister, that you may tell me, whether it can be called a pretence, that the Baron de Carondelet, who was entrufted with the fafety of Louisiana, refused to carry into execution a pretenfion that was not ftipulated for by the treaty? By the fecond article it is only

agreed

agreed that the garrifons fhall be withdrawn; and, as I had the honour of reprefenting to you in my letter of the 24th ult. it is not to be prefumed that it could ever have been the intention of his Catholic Majefty to deliver up fortifications, which, befides that they have coft him confiderable fums of money, may, by the effect of political viciffitudes, be one day prejudicial to his fubjects. If not to do what was not ftipulated for, and the execution of which would be contrary to the interefts of Spain, is a pretence, we must confefs that it is a very plausible one.

With respect to the line of demarkation, it appears by the correfpondence and letters of the Baron de Carondelet, which are in my pofieflion, that although he entertained the fame doubts which were fuggefted by Governor Gayofo refpecting the pofts, yet he was confenting that the aftronomical obfervations fhould be begun upon, for which purpofe the engineer, M. de Guillemand, had already arrived at the Natchez, with all the inftruments and apparatus. Such was the fituation of things when my communications refpecting the intended expedition got to hand; from that moment imperious neceffity, and the great principles of felf-deience, made his Catholic Majesty's officers turn their thoughts to objects of a more urgent nature. Mr. Blount's letter, and the late detected confpiracy, evince how far their conduct in this refpe& was neceffary; and you, Sir, poffeffed, as you were, of all the facts, when you laid them before the Prefident, ought to have been one of the laft to have ftigmatized the motives with the epithet of pretexts. So palpable an attempt to make groundless and unfair impreffions on the public mind, is well calculated to defeat its own ends, and appears ftill more extraordinary when we confider that the American government is in every way anxious, by its own confeflion, to maintain peace and harmony with Spain.

Nor do your ill-founded infinuations ftop here: fentiments and expreffions still more violent, flow from that fame hafty pen, You fay in another part, "that there is but too much reafon to believe Mr. Ellicott's fufpicions well founded, that an undue influence has been exercifed over the Indians by the officers of his Catholic Majefty, to prepare them for a rupture with the United. States." Fortunately, Sir, you have told us the fource whence you derived all thofe dreadful conjectures of yours; otherwise, perhaps, the weight and authority which your high official character ftamps upon whatever you write or fay, might make an undue impreffion on the public. You acknowledge, Sir, it was a private letter of Mr. Sargent's (fecretary of the north-western territory) that gave rife to your furmifes: we fhall now fee what the letter fays:

No.

« PrejšnjaNaprej »