3047. FLORIDA, Seizure of.—[further continued].
We are in a state of
semi-warfare with your adjoining colonies, the
Floridas. We do not consider this as affecting
our peace with Spain, or any other of her former
possessions. We wish her and them well;
and under her present difficulties at home, and
her doubtful future relations with her colonies,
both wisdom and interest will, I presume, induce
her to leave them to settle themselves the quarrels
they draw on themselves from their neighbors.
The commanding officers in the Floridas
have excited and armed the neighboring savages
to war against us, and to murder and scalp
many of our women and children as well as
men, taken by surprise—poor creatures! They
have paid for it with the loss of the flower of
their strength, and have given us the right, as
we possess the power, to exterminate or to expatriate
them beyond the Mississippi. This conduct
of the Spanish officers will probably oblige
us to take possession of the Floridas, and the
rather as we believe the English will otherwise
seize them, and use them as stations to
distract and annoy us. But should we possess
ourselves of them, and Spain retain her other
colonies in this hemisphere, I presume we shall
consider them in our hands as subjects of
negotiation.—
To Don V. Toranda Coruna. Washington ed. vi, 274.
(M.
Dec. 1813)
