USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 3
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
"After having conversed with him, and found out all that I wished to know, I began to weaken his hopes by observing that the feelings of ani- mosity engendered by the late revolution were so recent in the hearts of the Americans, that I considered it impossible to entice them into an alliance with Great Britain; that in this district, particularly in that part of it where the inhabitants had suffered so much from the barbarous hostilities of the Indians, which were attributed to British influence, the resentment of every individual was much more intense and implacable. In order to justify this opinion of mine, and induce him to go back, I employed a hunter, who feigned attempting his life. The pretext assumed by the hunter was the avenging of the death of his son, murdered by the Indians at the supposed instigation of the English. As I hold the commission of a civil judge, it was, of course, to be my duty to protect him against the pretended mur- derer, whom I caused to be arrested and held in custody. I availed myself of this circumstance to communicate to Connelly my fear of not being able to answer for the security of his person, and I expressed my doubts whether he could escape with life. It alarmed him so much that he begged me to give him an escort to conduct him out of our territory, which I readily assented to; and on the 20th of November he recrossed the Ohio upon his way back to Detroit. I did not dismiss him without having previously im- pressed upon him the propriety of informing me, in as short a time as pos- sible, of the ultimate designs of Lord Dorchester. As this man was under the protection of the laws of nations. and as he carefully avoided to commit any offense against our government, I considered the measure I had resorted to as the most appropriate to destroy his hopes with regard to this country. and I think that the relation he will make on his return to Canada will pro- duce the desired effect. But should the British be disposed to renew the same attempt, as it may very well turn out to be the case, I shall be ready to oppose and crush it in the bud.
"I deem it useless to mention to a gentleman well versed in political history that the great spring and prime mover in all negotiations is money. For these objects, I have advanced five thousand dollars out of my own funds, and half of this sum, applied opportunely, would attract Marshall and Muter on our side, but it is now impossible for me to disburse it."
General St. Clair, in a letter to Major Dunn, of date December 5th, says : " Dear Dunn, I am much grieved to hear that there are strong dis- positions on the part of the people of Kentucky to break off their connec- tions with the United States. and that our friend Wilkinson is at the head of this affair. Such a consummation would involve our country in the great- est difficulties and completely ruin it. Should there be any foundation for these reports, for God's sake make use of your influence to detach Wilkin- son from that party."
Though Wilkinson promised no further dispatches until May, yet on the 14th of February, he again wrote to Miro, from which letter we quote :
441
MIRO FORWARDS THE DOCUMENTS.
1 " If you have felt some disquietude over the silence of the ministry on my memorial. and if you have nothing satisfactory from our dear friend Na- varro, I think you should be satisfied, because it seems our plan has been eagerly accepted. Don Gardoqui has received ample powers to make proper arrangements in order to estrange our people from the Union, and induce them to form an alliance with Spain. I received this information first from Mr. Brown, congressman from this district, who, since our application for admission into the Union has been suspended, entered into some free com- munications on this matter with Gardoqui. He returned home in Septem- ber, and, finding some opposition to our project, positively refused to advocate in public the propositions of Gardoqui, as he deemed them fatal to our cause. Brown is one of our deputies or agents; he is a young man of respectable talents, but timid, without experience, and with very little knowledge of the world. Nevertheless, as he perseveres in his adherence to our interests, we have sent him to the new Congress, apparently as our representative, but in reality as a spy on the actions of that body. I would myself have undertaken that charge, but I did not, for two reasons-first, . my presence was necessary here ; and next, I should have found myself under the obligation of swearing to support the new Government, which in duty I am bound to oppose."
This lengthy supplemental dispatch closes with the pithy and facetious expression : " Herein enclosed (Doc. No. 3), you will find two Gazettes, which contain all the proceedings of our last convention. You will observe that the memorial to Congress was presented by me, and perhaps your first impression will be one of surprise that such a document should have issued from the pen of so good a Spaniard. But my policy is to justify in the eye of the world our meditated separation from the Union, and to quiet the ap- prehensions of some friends in the Atlantic States. Thus having publicly represented our rights and established our pretensions, if Congress does not support them, which it can not do, even if it had the inclination, not only will all the people of Kentucky, but also the whole world, approve our seek- ing protection from another quarter."
2 On the 11th of April, Miro forwarded the two very expressive dispatches of Wilkinson to Madrid. and the documents annexed to them. He shares Wilkinson's opinion that the independence of the Western people, under protection of and alliance with Spain, would be more to the interest of Spain than direct annexation to her dominions, on account of the responsibilities and expenses which such an acquisition would entail, and also on account of the jealousies and oppositions it would elicit from other powers. He urgently inquires of the cabinet what he shall do in case Kentucky declares her independence and sends delegates to him. He is unprepared to supply her people with ammunition, arms, and other implements they may need to
I Copy of Spanish Archives, Baton Rouge.
2 Spanish Archives.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
resist any action of the Federal Government, should it attempt to coerce them into submission. Said he further to the minister : " In paragraph B, you will find an account of the bold act which Wilkinson has ventured to take, in presenting his first memorial in a public convention. In this act, he has so completely bound himself that, should he not be able to obtain the separation of Kentucky from the Union, it has become impossible for him to live there, unless he has suppressed, which is possible, certain passages which might injure him. On account of the opposition of Marshall and Muter, the convention ordered new memorials to be presented to Virginia and to Congress, to obtain the independence of Kentucky, her admission into the Union, and the free navigation of the Mississippi."
Miro adds, that he disagreed with Wilkinson as to the solution of the first two questions, and expressed the opinion that their separation from Virginia and reception into the Union would be conceded to them ; that the answer of Congress was not deceitful, because the right of Kentucky to what she claims is incontestable, and derived from the articles of confedera- tion on which the United States established their first government. He thought, with Wilkinson, that it was a bad stroke of policy on the part of Spain to have granted the Kentuckians the navigation of the Mississippi. as it withdrew a motive of self-interest to become independent, and to rely on Spain.
It must not be supposed that the intrigues of the Spanish cabinet were devoted exclusively to Kentucky. They were busily and artfully applied in the Western district of North Carolina, now embraced in Tennessee, and in the territory between Upper Georgia and the Mississippi river.
1 As early as 1786, the western portion of North Carolina, known as Washington district, had declared itself independent, and had constituted itself into the State of Frankland, organized its government, and elected Colonel John Sevier its first governor. The energetic assertion of authority by North Carolina, the interference of Congress, the arrest of Sevier on charge of treason, and his daring rescue from the court-room by his bold followers, and final escape, all followed promptly-and thus Frankland termi- nated its brief career in 1787. This first attempt in the West to throw off openly the allegiance due to the parent State had aroused intense excite- ment for and against it, and the secessionists, still persevering in their for- mer designs, were watching for the opportunity to renew them. Thus, on the 12th of September, 1788, ex-Governor John Sevier had written to Gar- doqui, to inform him that the inhabitants of Frankland were unanimous in their vehement desire to form an alliance and treaty of commerce with Spain. and put themselves under her protection. Wherefore. he begged for ammuni- tion, money, and whatever other assistance Miro could grant, to aid the execution of the contemplated separation from North Carolina, pledging the faith of the State of Frankland for the payment of whatever sums Spain
I Gayarre's History of Louisiana, p. 257.
443
SPAIN'S CONDITIONS TO FRANKLAND.
might advance, and whatever expenses she might incur, in an enterprise which would secure to her such durable and important results. "Before concluding this communication," said Sevier, "it is necessary that I should mention that there can not be a moment more opportune than the present, to carry our plan into execution. North Carolina has refused to accept the new constitution proposed for the confederacy, and therefore a considera- ble time will elapse before she becomes a member of the Union, if that event ever happens."
The settlers on the Cumberland river, who were also under the jurisdic- tion of North Carolina, were deeply interested in the navigation of the Mis- sissippi, and therefore were equally influenced by the motives which were operating so powerfully on the people of Kentucky and other portions of the West. The name of Miro, given to a district which they had lately formed, shows which way their partiality was leaning at that time.
Dr. James White was one of the most active agents employed by Gar- doqui to operate on the Western people, and this individual had come to Louisiana to enter into an understanding with Miro on the execution of the mission with which he had been entrusted. In a communication which he addressed to Miro, on the 18th of April, 1789, he said: "With regard to Frankland, Don Diego Gardoqui gave me letters for the chief men of that district, with instructions to assure them that if they wished to put them- selves under the protection of Spain and favor her interests, they should be protected in their civil and political government, in the form and manner most agreeable to them, on the following conditions : 'First-It should be absolutely necessary, not only in order to hold any office, but also any land, in Frankland, that an oath of allegiance be taken to his majesty, the object and purport of which should be to defend his government and faithful vas- sals on all occasions, and against all his enemies, whoever they might be. Second-That the inhabitants of that district should renounce all submission or allegiance whatever to any other sovereign or power.' They have eagerly accepted these conditions, and the Spanish minister has referred me to your favor, patronage, and assistance, to facilitate my operations. With regard to Cumberland district, what I have said of Frankland applies to it with equal force and truth."
This is enough for our Kentucky history, simply to convey an idea of the significance given to the Spanish policy of limiting the power and juris- diction westward, by the Alleghany range. The most cherished aim was to bring under the provincial dominion of Spain all the territory south of the Ohio river to the Floridas, and west of the mountain divide ; or, failing in this, to encourage and effect a separation of the inhabitants of the same from the old Union of thirteen States, and thereby erect a barrier between the Louisiana domain and the aggressive and conquering Americans. The opportunities could not have been more propitious and tempting. But two essentials were lacking to make of the expansive and alluring project a pos-
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
sibility. Spain, under the blighting curse of titled caste and of kingcraft and priestcraft, had already fallen into impassive stagnation, and political inanition rendered nerveless every arm of its power; while the Spaniard everywhere negotiated and intrigued in timid secrecy and cipher, as though sadly conscious of feebleness from departed vigor and prestige. The adven- turous and bold Anglo-American instinctively saw and felt this self-conscious inferiority, and held his neighboring Hidalgo of chivalry at a discount that barely saved him from reserved contempt. Had England or France occupied the same vantage ground at the same period, the autonomy of the trans- montane territories might have been very differently formulated, with very different jurisdictions. The people of Kentucky were too independent and warlike to have become provincial to any foreign power. It was within the limits of contingent probability that she might have become separately inde- pendent of the Federal Union. Had she done so under existing circum- stances, it is quite inferable that, with her population of over two hundred thousand in 1800, under some powerful prompting or pretext, an army of her restless foresters would have floated down the Mississippi, and attempted the conquest and occupancy of New Orleans and Louisiana.
But as we stand off at the distance of a century, and review this remark- able episode of our early history, we gratefully acknowledge that the order- ings of a wise Providence conspired to the final results which seem to have been the best. The failure of the present intrigues was becoming but too evident. We follow it to an early close. On the 5th of January, 1790, Sebastian addressed a letter to Wilkinson, urging, as this affair had taken up the greater portion of his time, that the Spanish Government should indemnify him, if it did not generously reward him. On principle, he professed to be as much attached to the interests of Louisiana as any one of the subjects of his Catholic majesty. This letter Wilkinson forwarded to Miro. About the 26th of January, a letter from Wilkinson to Miro was couched in less flattering tones. The grant of the navigation of the Missis- sippi had satisfied the people, and even left them with little desire or motive to emigrate to Louisiana. On his return home to Kentucky. he had found a great change even among the warmest friends. 1 " I attribute this, " said he, "either to the hope of promotion, or the fear of punishment. According to my prognostic, Washington has begun to operate on the chief heads of this district. Innes has been appointed a Federal judge: George Nicholas. district attorney; McDowell, son of the president of the convention, and Marshall, to offices resembling that of Alguazil mayor, and Peyton Short is made a court-house officer. I place little reliance on Nicholas and Mc- Dowell; but Innes is friendly to Spain and hostile to Congress, and I am authorized to say that he would much prefer receiving a pension from New Orleans than one from New York. I fear that we can rely on but few of our countrymen, if we can not make use of liberal means. Should the
I Spanish Archives. Gayarre's History, p. 275.
445
MIRO'S SUGGESTIONS ACTED UPON.
king approve our designs on this point, it will have to be broached with difficulty."
Relative to the convention to be held in June, he promises to attend, and, with the help of Sebastian and other friends, to do all in his power to promote the cause. He is strongly suspected by Congress, which spies his movements at every step. An open avowal of plans now to separate from the Union would endanger his personal security, and deprive him of the power of serving the interests of Spain. The situation was painful and mortifying, that, while abhorring all deceit, he was obliged to dissemble. This condition leads him to devise an opportunity to "publicly propose himself a vassal of his Catholic majesty, and contingently claim his pro- tection."
1686614
On the 22d of May, Miro rendered an account of his last transactions with Wilkinson, with the correspondence, in dispatches to Madrid. He agreed that the concessions of the right of navigation and trade to the Ken- tuckians had prejudiced the hopes of separation and alliance with Spain; yet he had not imagined that the effects would be so sudden. Wilkinson's hosts of influential followers had mysteriously vanished, excepting Sebastian. He considered that he was liable to be misled in his opinions of a man operating six hundred leagues away, and who had rendered, and was yet rendering, services to his majesty, as explained before. But now he is full of invincible obstacles and personal risks should he declare himself, and avails himself of the motive which he puts forth to cover his precipitation. Nevertheless, he thinks the said brigadier-general ought to be retained in the service of his majesty, with an annual pension of two thousand dollars, which he had already proposed in his confidential dispatch, No. 46, that he may communicate anything affecting the interest of the province, and may dissuade the Kentuckians from any evil designs against it. Miro further recommended a similar pension to Sebastian, " because I think it proper to treat this individual, who will be able to enlighten me on the conduct of Wilkinson, and on what we have to expect from the plans of the general." Thus, the code of corruption was complied with to its most refined details. A spy was set to watch a spy, while both consented to play the part of dis- sembling conspirators against the Government toward which they were openly professing allegiance, thus bartering honor and good faith for Span- ish gold.
A hiatus of four years of comparative quiet follows this subsidence of active intrigue and correspondence, at the end of which time renewed efforts were inaugurated with a boldness of conception and plan which seems in strange contrast with the desperation of hope and hazard on which they were based. In the midst of these last intrigues, with discomfiture to the conspirators, came the intelligence of the treaty between the United States and Spain, signed at Madrid, on the 20th of October. 1795. 1
& Monette's History of the Mississippi Valle:
446
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
The principal agreed conditions of the treaty, which related to Louisiana, were as follows:
The second article stipulates that the future boundary between the United States and the Floridas shall be the thirty-first parallel of north latitude.
The third article, that each party, respectively, shall appoint one commis- sioner and one surveyor, and proceed thence to run and mark the said southern boundary of the United States ..
The fourth article, that the middle of the Mississippi river shall be the western boundary of the United States, from its source to the intersection of the said line of demarcation. The king of Spain also negotiates that the whole width of said river, from its source to the sea, shall be free to the peo- ple of the United States.
The fifth article, that each party shall require and enforce peace and neu- trality among the Indian tribes inhabiting their respective territories.
The king of Spain stipulates and agrees further to permit the people of the United States, for the term of three years, to use the port of New Orleans as a place of deposit for their produce and merchandise, to be removed at the end of the time named.
1 Although Spain suspended her restrictions upon the river trade after this treaty had been ratified, it was quite apparent that the king never intended to surrender the territory east of the Mississippi, and north of latitude thirty-one, provided any contingency should enable him to hold possession. He had been compelled, by the pressure of political embar- rassment, both in Europe and in America, to yield a reluctant assent to the treaty, as the only means by which he could preserve the province of Louis- iana from invasion, and conciliate the hostile feelings of the Western people of the United States. Spain, incited by France, had been upon the verge of a war with Great Britain, and already the British authorities in Canada had planned an invasion of Upper Louisiana, by way of the lakes and the Illinois river, whenever hostilities should be formally proclaimed. To pre- vent this invasion was an object to be gained by the treaty of Madrid, which would put the neutral territory of a friendly power in the path of invaders.
While the negotiations had been carried on between Spain and the United States, Baron de Carondelet had been striving to secure success to his favor- ite plan of separating the West from the rest of the Union. His chief agent, Power, had informed him that the same influential individuals in Kentucky. who had been in secret correspondence with Governor Miro, such as Wil- kinson, Innes, Murray, Nicholas, etc., were disposed to renew their former relations with the Spanish Government, and that some of them would be ready to meet at the mouth of the Ohio any officer of rank that should be sent to them. In consequence of this communication. Carondelet chose for this delicate mission the governor of Natchez, Gayoso de Lemos, who proceeded to New Madrid, whence he despatched Power to make the pre-
I Monette's History of the Mississippi Valley
447
POWER SUBMITS PROPOSALS.
liminary arrangements for the interview with Sebastian, Innes, and their other associates. Power met Sebastian at Red Banks, near New Madrid. This individual told the Spanish emissary that Innes had been prevented by some family concerns from leaving home; that, as the courts of Kentucky were then in session, the absence of Nicholas, a lawyer in great practice, would excite suspicion ; and that Murray, 1 having lately become an habitual drunkard, was unfit for any kind of business, and could not be trusted. This was a great disappointment for Power; but Sebastian went down with' him to meet Gayoso, who, in the meantime, had employed the men of his escort in erecting a small stockade fort on the right bank of the river, oppo- site the mouth of the Ohio, in order to cause it to be believed that the con- struction of this fortification had been the object of his journey. Sebastian declared to Gayoso that he was authorized to treat in the name of Innes and Nicholas, but seems to have said nothing about Wilkinson. Gayoso proposed to him that they should together visit the Baron de Carondelet. This was assented to, and Power, Sebastian, and Gayoso departed for New Orleans, where they arrived early in January, 1796. In the beginning of the spring, Sebastian and Power sailed together for Philadelphia, no doubt on a mission for the Spanish governor. Power soon returned to Kentucky, and submitted to those whom he expected to seduce, the following docu- ment :
2 " His excellency, the Baron de Carondelet, commander-in-chief and gov- ernor of his Catholic majesty's provinces of West Florida and Louisiana, having communications of importance, embracing the interests of said prov- inces, and at the same time deeply affecting those of Kentucky and of the Western country in general, to make to its inhabitants, through the medium of the influential characters in this country; and judging it, in the present uncertain and critical attitude of politics, highly imprudent and dangerous to lay them on paper, has expressly commissioned and authorized me to sub- mit the following proposals to the consideration of Messrs. Sebastian, Nich- olas, Innes, and Murray, and also of such other gentlemen as may be pointed out by them, and to receive from them their sentiments and deter- minations on the subject.
"First-The above-mentioned gentlemen are to exert all their influence in impressing. on the minds of the inhabitants of the Western country, a conviction of the necessity of their withdrawing and separating themselves from the Federal Union, and forming an independent government wholly unconnected with that of the Atlantic States. To prepare and dispose the people for such an event, it will be necessary that the most popular and elo- quent writers in this State should. in well-timed publications, expose, in the most striking point of view, the inconveniences and disadvantages that a longer connection with, and dependence on, the Atlantic States, must inev-
I Martin's History, Vol. II , p. 126.
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