USA > Florida > The purchase of Florida; its history and diplomacy > Part 25
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True, we suffered much at the hands of Spain in our early years. She had sought to confine us to the Atlantic seaboard, and when that became impossible, she attempted to hold the east bank of the Mississippi and prevent the advance of the frontiersmen. She sought to seduce our Western territory from its connection with the Union, and
1. Hamilton in 1799 had considered the acquisition of Louisiana and the Floridas as "essential to the permanency of the Union."
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many of our officers, notably the contemptible Wilkinson, were guilty of corrupt connections with these plots. This not by way of justification - but England was doing the same thing and France was not innocent.
Then we acquired Louisiana. France, admittedly, had no right to sell it to us, yet we desired it, it was possible to secure it, and so it became ours. Spain vigorously pro- tested but was obliged to acquiesce lest even worse mis- fortune come upon her. A strong, powerful nation we may well believe would have done something more than weakly protest. We were in a position to profit by the troubles of Europe and we cared naught for the ineffectual anger of deceived and injured Spain. And we must blush with shame when we note that the great Fisher Ames was not alone in thinking the purchase of Louisiana mean and despicable when the province might have been seized by violence - or to use the synonymous expression, have come to us by manifest destiny. To secure by purchase what might soon have yielded to force, they deemed cowardly and unstatesmanlike.
Louisiana secured, we deliberately set about to acquire the two Floridas. We systematically stirred up trouble for Spain. We advanced a claim to West Florida that was wholly untenable. Spain, nay, all Europe, considered our pretensions founded on a sophistry in words, though there was an evident perspicuity in sense. Then we proceeded to seize the territory by arms under the shameful pretence that we would give it up when we found the seizure wrong - a dangerous and astounding theory, supported neither by law nor morals. In 1811 Congress passed a resolution and an act authorizing the seizure of the Floridas under certain contingencies, leaving the widest latitude to executive dis- cretion. This was a bold defiance of the law of nations and individuals. Spain had every right to either hold or sell her territory, and to whatever nation she pleased. The
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United States forbade her doing either. We announced that we would wage war upon Spain if she attempted to sell, and upon whatever nation might become the vendee.
Every American citizen knows in his heart that nothing of the kind would have been conceived or attempted if Spain had been able to defend by force her unquestionable rights. Nor did we stop there. To all intents and purposes we served notice upon her that she must dispose of the ter- ritory to us or prepare for war. We were determined to possess Florida. What did we offer in return? We would release her from the claims which we held against her. We presented huge bills for damages, many of which would never have been allowed in any court in this country. We held her responsible for the losses inflicted by French ves- sels and French prize courts after we had expressly released France from all liability. We brought forward claims for the losses of our citizens along the Florida line, losses which by their own misconduct they had expressly invited - for the white settlers of Georgia were responsible for most of the Indian ravages in that section, apart from the losses which they themselves had inflicted in their constant raids across the Florida line.
We thus presented enormous claims to bankrupt Spain and we well knew that in only one way could she liquidate them - by surrendering her territories. Then we took further advantage of the confusion in Spanish affairs by fomenting insurrections in her territories and under this miserable and humiliating guise sought to extend our power. How gross the artifice, how shallow the deception ! We seized Amelia Island under the pretext of breaking up a nest of pirates and bandits - a proceeding particularly disgraceful to us because it was principally American free- booters who had congregated there.
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During all these years, had England, Russia, or France " supported the wishes of Ferdinand, he would probably have defied the United States.
Then the Seminole war, our own fault, because largely the direct result of instructions from our government to the officers in that region. Jackson with his genius for arrang- ing diplomatic controversies, this inveterate don-hater with his intense and notorious anti-Spanish sentiments, was sent to conduct the war. This man, whose desire it had long been to seize Pensacola and occupy the Floridas as indem- nity for our claims, was dispatched on a mission where infinite tact and self control were imperatively demanded. Then followed what might have been expected and what appears to have been desired, a series of violations of inter- national law which astounded the whole world and incurred the hostility of Europe. No more here of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. The Spanish governor at St. Marks may have been an accomplice of the Seminoles; but there was noth- ing calculated to implicate other Spanish commandants, and even if all were guilty, self preservation did not require , a summary seizure of the posts, or Jackson's presumption, or Adams's either, that Spain sanctioned the treachery of her provincial agents.
And in the meantime we were tearing at the vitals of Spain in another direction. All South America was in revolt and we were giving the revolutionists something more than our mere sympathy. Monroe admitted in his confidential letters that the policy of his administration had been to throw the moral weight of the United States in the scale of the colonies, without so deeply compromising the nation as to make it a party to the war. Our ports were opened to them ; filibustering expeditions were organized in this country ; our harbors were filled with their prizes ; our good offices had been exercised for them, and to good purpose, with every power in Europe; and by the policy
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thus pursued more real service had been done them than recognition could possibly have procured. We feared to acknowledge their independence lest it ruin our purposes with regard to the Floridas, but those once in our hands, with singular bad faith, ministers were immediately dis- patched to their governments. For nearly a year Spain had held up the treaty of 1819 in an effort to secure from this country a pledge not to recognize the South American countries. True, we had refused, but a strict adherence to the rules of international ethics - if in truth there be any such thing - hardly countenanced our course in the mat- ter.
The question then presents itself for candid, honest consideration : How far was the cession of Florida due to the fact that we wanted it and were determined to have it at all hazards, and how far to the "grievances" of one kind and another which we urged against Spain, and then how far were these "grievances" due to the acts of our own citizens? Had we been unselfish and shown a dispo- sition, as a friendly power, to help Spain out of her diffi- culties, were there any troubles which could not have been removed without our threats of war and without our insist- ing upon a transfer of territory? Had our claims to that province been even weaker, which is difficult to conceive, or those of Spain a hundredfold stronger than they actu- ally were, would we not have acquired the territory all the same - would not this same manifest destiny have exer- cised its all-potent influence ?
Consider for a moment the position of Spain on this continent at the opening of the nineteenth cen- tury, and that of the United States at the same time. One great fact stands out above all this intervening century of diplomacy with its dark intrigues and chi- canery on one side and the other - those vast terri- tories which were then in the possession of Spain now
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recognize our sovereignty - and that transfer has been effected without any appreciable cost to ourselves. There is no American today who is not ashamed of our wholly unwarranted method of despoiling Mexico; can he feel any prouder of the Florida acquisition? Or are we the especial pet of manifest destiny, and when will she cease to honor our nation with her lavish gifts?
At the time of the acquisition of Florida, Crawford suggested that England and France regarded the United States as ambitious and encroaching, and he counselled moderation. Adams cared naught for foreign opinion and replied that "if the world do not hold us for Romans, they will take us for Jews, and of the two vices I would rather be charged with that which has greatness mingled in its composition." He deemed it proper that the world should be "familiarized with the idea of considering our proper dominion to be the whole continent of North America." This was a "law of nature" and could not fail. To suppose that Spain and England could, through lapse of time, re- tain their possessions on this side of the Atlantic was to his way of thinking a "physical, moral, and political absurdity." More talk then of manifest destiny and its miracles or, more accurately, manifest determination and strength on the one side, and manifest weakness on the other. It was the right of might - the triumph of force.
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APPENDICES
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APPENDIX A.
VOL. VI, INSTRUCTIONS, P. 137.
James Monroe.
July 29, 1803.
On the presumption . . that you will have proceeded to Madrid it is thought proper to observe to you that although Louisiana may in some respects be more important than the Floridas and has more than exhausted the funds allotted for the purchase of the latter, the acquisition of the Floridas is still to be pursued, especially as the crisis must be favorable to it.
You will be at no loss for the arguments most likely to have weight in prevailing on Spain to yield to our wishes. These colonies separated from her other territories on this con- tinent by New Orleans, the Mississippi and the whole of Western Louisiana are now of less value to her than ever, whilst to the United States they retain the peculiar importance derived from their position and their relation to us through the navigable rivers running from the United States into the Gulf of Mexico. In the hands of Spain they must ever be a dead expense in time of peace, indefensible in time of war, and at all times a source of irritation and ill blood with the United States. The Spanish government must understand in fact that the United States can never consider the amicable relation between Spain and them as definitely and permanently secured without an arrangement on this subject which will substitute the manifest indications of nature for the artificial and inconvenient state of things now existing.
The advantage to be derived to your negotiations from the war which has just commenced will certainly not escape you. Powerful and effectual use may be made of the fact that Great Britain meant to seize New Orleans, with a view to the anxiety of the United States to obtain it -of the inference from that fact, that the same policy will be pursued with respect to the Floridas. Should Spain be in the war it cannot be doubted
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that they will be quickly occupied by a British force and held out on some condition or other to the United States. Should Spain be still at peace and wish not to lose her neutrality she should reflect that the facility and policy of seizing the Floridas must strengthen the temptations of Great Britain to force her into the war. In any view it will be better for Spain that the Floridas should be in the hands of the United States than of Great Britain and equally so that they should be ceded on bene- ficial terms by herself than that they should find their way to us through the hands of Great Britain.
By the enclosed note of the Spanish minister here you will see the refusal of Spain to listen to our past overtures, with the reasons for the refusal. The answer to that communica- tion is also enclosed. The reply to such reasons will be very easy. Neither the reputation nor the duty of his Catholic Majesty can suffer from any measure founded in wisdom and the true interests of Spain. There is as little ground for sup- posing that the maritime powers of Europe, will complain of, or be dissatisfied with, a cession of the two Floridas to the United States more than with the late cession of Louisiana by Spain to France or more than with the former cession through which the Floridas themselves have passed. What the treaties are subsequent to that of Utrecht, which are alleged to preclude Spain from the proposed alienation have not been examined. Admitting them to exist in the sense put upon them, there is probably no maritime power who would not readily acquiesce in our acquisition of the Floridas as more advantageous to itself, than the retention of them by Spain shut up against all foreign 'commerce and liable at every moment to be thrown into the preponderant scale of Great Britain. Great Britain herself would unquestionably have no objection to their being trans- ferred to us: unless it should be drawn from her intention to conquer them for herself, or from the use she might expect to make of them in a negotiation with the United States and with respect to France. Silence at least is imposed on her by the cession to the United States of the province ceded to her by Spain: not to mention, that she must wish to see the Floridas like Louisiana kept out of the hands of Great Britain and has doubtless felt that motive in promising her good offices with Spain for obtaining these possessions for the United States. Of this promise you will of course make the proper use in your negotiations.
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For the price to be given for the Floridas you are referred generally to the original instructions on this point. Although the change of circumstances lessens the anxiety for acquiring immediately a territory which now more certainly than ever, must drop into our hands and notwithstanding the pressure of the bargain with France on our treasury; yet for the sake of a peaceable and fair completion of a great object you are per- mitted by the president, in case a less sum will not be accepted, to give $2,250,000, the sum heretofore apportioned to this pur- chase. It will be expected however that the whole of it, if necessary, be made applicable to the discharge of debts and damages claimed from Spain-as well those not yet admitted by the Spanish government as those covered by the convention signed with it by Mr. Pinckney on the eleventh day of August, 1802.
These claims include those arising from privateers' depreda- tions along Florida and Mississippi lines and losses arising from violation of our deposit at New Orleans.
If it be impossible to bring Spain to a cession of the whole of the two Floridas a trial is to be made for obtaining either or any important part of either. The part of West Florida adjoining the territories now ours and including the principal rivers falling into the gulf will be particularly important and convenient.
It is not improbable that Spain in treating on a cession of the Floridas may propose an exchange of them for Louisiana beyond the Mississippi or may make a serious point of some particular boundary to that territory. Such exchange is inad- missible. In intrinsic value there is no equality: besides the advantage, given us by the west bank of the entire jurisdiction of the river. We are the less disposed also to make sacrifices to obtain the Floridas because their position and the manifest course of events guarantee an early and reasonable acquisition of them. With respect to the adjustment of a boundary between Louisiana and the Spanish territories, there might be no objec- tion to combining it with a cession of the Floridas, if our knowledge of the extent and character of Louisiana were less imperfect. At present any arrangement, would be a step too much in the dark to be hazarded, and this will be a proper answer to the Spanish government. . .
Should no cession whatever be obtainable, it will remain only, for the present, to provide for the free use of the rivers
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running from the United States into the gulf. A convenient de- posit is to be pressed as equally reasonable there as on the Mis- sissippi.
The free use of those rivers for our external commerce is to be insisted on as an important right.
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APPENDIX B.
FROM MAJORITY REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS-CON- GRESS (H. OF R.), JANUARY, 1819. ANNALS OF CONGRESS, P. 515.
Your committee can find no law of the United States author- izing a trial before a military court for such offenses as are alleged against Arbuthnot and Ambrister (except so much of the second charge as charges Arbuthnot with "acting as a spy" of which part of the charge the court found him "not guilty"), nor in the opinion of our committee does any usage authorize or ex- igency appear from the documents accompanying the report of the trial which can justify the assumption and exercise of power by the court-martial and the commanding general on this occa- sion. It is admitted as a maxim of the law of nations that where the war is with a savage nation which observes no rules and never gives quarter we may punish them in the person of any of their people whom we may take (belonging to the number of the guilty) and endeavor by this vigorous proceeding to force them to respect the laws of humanity. Wherever severity is not a necessity mercy becomes a duty. In vain has your committee sought for a shadow of a necessity for the death of the prisoners arraigned before the court. The war was at an end to all in- tents and purposes, the enemy's strongholds had been destroyed- many of them killed or taken prisoners, and the remainder a feeble band dispersed and scattered in every direction. The Spanish fort of St. Marks which it was supposed (and no doubt justly) had protected them was also in our possession and so entirely was the war considered to be terminated that the Georgia militia under General Glascock had returned to their homes. Then where was the absolute necessity which alone could war- rant a departure from the exercise of that clemency of which the United States has heretofore so justly boasted?
Your committee find in the general order of the twenty-ninth of April, in which General Jackson orders the execution of Arbuth-
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not and Ambrister this remarkable reason, intended as a justifi. cation of the executions, principally of Ambrister but applying to both Arbuthnot and Ambrister: "It is an established principle of the law of nations that any individual of a nation making war against the citizens of another nation, they being at peace, forfeits his allegiance and becomes an outlaw and a pirate." It may be asked by what system of interpretation the offenses charged could be considered as piracies which imply in common accepta- tion offenses upon the high seas, of which the court could not as- sume cognizance; and it is equally difficult to understand the pro- priety of the application of the term "outlaw" to the offenders --- a term which applies only to the relations of individuals with their own governments. It will not be pretended that Lafayette who volunteered his services in the cause of America in the war which established our independence forfeited his allegiance, became an outlaw, and subjected himself to an ignominious death had he fallen into the hands of the English, or can it be believed that one voice could be heard in justification of Spain if she were to execute such of our countrymen as she may make prisoners, while fighting in the armies of the South American patriots? And if these cases should not be considered of such a nature as to warrant a resort to so severe a measure while they occurred with a people in a state of revolution and considered by the parent countries to be in a state of rebellion, much less could these (Arbuthnot and Ambrister) be considered liable to it who were acting with a power acknowledged and treated as sovereign and independent by us.
Your committee beg leave to call your attention particularly to the case of R. C. Ambrister who, after having been subjected to a trial before a court which had no cognizance or jurisdiction over the offenses charged against him was shot by the order of the commanding general contrary to the forms and usages of the army and without regard to the finding of that court which had been instituted as a guide for himself.
Nor can your committee forbear including in their strictures the court-martial who sat on the trial of Arbuthnot and Am- brister. A court-martial is a tribunal invested with limited jurisdiction having for its guidance the same rules of evidence which govern courts of law; and yet Arbuthnot is refused by the court-martial, before whom he was on trial for his life, the benefit of the testimony of Ambrister who had not been put upon his trial at that time and whose evidence would have been re-
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ceived by any court of law as legal, if not credible. Many other exceptions might be made to the evidence recorded in these pro- ceedings: particularly to the question put to the witness, Hambly, namely: "Do you believe the Seminoles would have commenced the business of murder and depredation on the white settlements had it not been at the instigation of the prisoner (Arbuthnot) and a promise on his part of British protection?" Answer: "I do not believe they would, without they had been assured of British protection." A leading question is expressly forbidden to be used by a court-martial by Macomb on martial law, and of which the court must have been apprised as it is a work com- mon in the army and usually referred to by every court-martial when in session: and the question was calculated to elicit an expression of opinion and belief from the witness rather than a statement of facts upon which alone could the court act. Hear- say evidence, in a case of life and death, your committee will venture to assert, was never before received against the accused in any court of this country and yet on the face of the record of the proceedings of the court-martial, hearsay testimony is ad- mitted which had been received from an Indian who, if present, would not have been allowed to give evidence himself. After mature deliberation your committee beg leave to submit the fol- lowing resolution: Resolved that the honor and right of the United States disapproves the proceedings in the trial and exe- cution of Alex. Arbuthnot and Robert C. Ambrister.
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APPENDIX C.
VOL. VIII. INSTRUCTIONS, P. 257.
To George W. Erving.
November 28, 1818.
In the fourth and last of these notes of Mr. Pizarro he has given formal notice that the king, his master, has issued orders for the suspension of the negotiation between the United States and Spain until satisfaction shall have been made by the American government to him for those proceedings of General Jackson: which he considers as acts of unequivocal hostility against him and as outrages upon his honor and dignity, the only acceptable atonement for which is stated to consist in a dis- avowal of the American government thus complained of: the infliction upon him of a suitable punishment for his supposed mis- conduct: and the restitution of the posts and territories taken by him from the Spanish authorities with indemnity for all the property taken and all damages and injuries, public or private, sustained in consequence of it.
Within a very few days after this notification Mr. Pizarro must have received with copies of the correspondence between Mr. De Onis and this department the determination which had been taken by the president to restore the place of Pensacola with the Fort of Barrancas to any person properly authorized on the part of Spain to receive them: and the Fort of St. Marks to any Spanish force adequate to its protection against the Indians by whom its forcible occupation had been threatened, for purposes of hostility against the United States. The officer commanding at the post has been directed to consider two hundred and fifty men as such adequate force and in case of their appearance with proper authority to deliver it up to their commander accordingly.
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