942. BOUNDARIES, United States and Spain.—[continued].
To this demonstration of
our rights may be added the explicit declaration
of the court of Spain, that she would accede
to them. This took place in conversations
and correspondence thereon between
Mr. Jay, Minister Plenipotentiary for the
United States at the court of Madrid, the
Marquis de Lafayette, and the Count de Florida
Blanca. Monsieur de Lafayette, in his letter
of February 19, 1783, to the Count de Florida
Blanca, states the result of their conversations
on limits in these words: “With respect to
limits, his Catholic Majesty has adopted those
that are determined by the preliminaries of
the 30th of November, between the United
States and the court of London.” The Count
de Florida Blanca, in his answer of February
22d, to M. de Lafayette, says, “although it is
his Majesty's intention to abide for the present
by the limits established by the treaty of the
30th of November, 1782, between the English
and the Americans, the King intends to inform
himself particularly whether it can be in any
ways inconvenient or prejudicial to settle that
affair amicably with the United States;” and
M. de Lafayette, in his letter of the same day
to Mr. Jay, wherein he had inserted the preceding.
says, “On receiving the answer of the
Count de Florida Blanca (to wit: his answer,
before mentioned, to M. de Lafayette), I desired
an explanation respecting the addition
that relates to the limits. I was answered
that it was a fixed principle to abide by the
limits established by the treaty between the
English and the Americans: that his remark
related only to mere unimportant details, which
he wished to receive from the Spanish commandants,
which would be amicably regulated,
and
would by no means oppose the general principle.
I asked him, before the Ambassador of
France (M. de Montmorin), whether he would
give me his word of honor for it; he assured
me he would, and that I might engage it to the
United States.”—
Mississipppi River Instructions. Washington ed. vii, 574.
Ford ed., v, 465.
(1792)
