Pinckney resisted this reasoning as energetically as possible; but when Cevallos offered to sign a convention covering the Spanish depredations, and reserving the Franco-Spanish claims for future discussion, Pinckney properly decided to accept an offer which secured for his fellow-citizens five or ten millions of money, and which left the other claim still open.[154] The convention of Aug. 11, 1802, was sent to the Senate Jan. 11, 1803, in the excitement that followed Morales’s withdrawal of the entrepôt at New Orleans. The Senate deferred action until the last moment of the session; and then, March 3, 1803, after Nicholson and Randolph had appeared at the bar to impeach Judge Pickering, Pinckney’s claims convention was taken up, and the nine Federalists were allowed to defeat it by the absence of Republican senators. The majority reconsidered the vote and postponed the whole subject till the next session. Thus, owing to the action of Federalist senators, when Jefferson in the following summer, after buying Louisiana, looked about for the means of buying Florida, he found these classes of claims, aggregating as he supposed between five and ten million dollars, ready to his hand. Monroe was promptly ordered to insist upon treating both classes alike, and setting both of them against the proposed purchase of Florida. “On the subject of these claims you will hold a strong language,” said Madison.[155]
A third class of claims could be made useful for the same purpose. Damages had been sustained by individuals in the violation of their right of deposit at New Orleans in the autumn of 1802.
“A distinction, however, is to be made,” wrote Madison, “between the positive and specific damages sustained by individuals and the general injuries accruing from that breach of treaty. The latter could be provided for by a gross and vague estimate only, and need not be pressed as an indispensable condition. The claim however may be represented as strictly just, and a forbearance to insist on it as an item in the valuable considerations for which the cession [of Florida] is made. Greater stress may be laid on the positive and specific damages capable of being formally verified by individuals; but there is a point beyond which it may be prudent not to insist, even here, especially as the incalculable advantage accruing from the acquisition of New Orleans will diffuse a joy throughout the western country that will drown the sense of these little sacrifices. Should no bargain be made on the subject of the Floridas, our claims of every sort are to be kept in force.”
The President had not then decided to claim West Florida as included in the Louisiana purchase, and he conceived of no reason which should make Spain cling the more closely to Florida on account of the loss of New Orleans.
The news of the Louisiana purchase reached Washington early in July, 1803; Madison wrote his instructions to Monroe at the end of the same month; Jefferson announced his policy to Breckenridge in August. This was the harvest season of his life. His theories were proved sound; his system of government stood in successful rivalry with that of Bonaparte and Pitt; and he felt no doubt that his friendship was as vital to England, France, and Spain as all the armies and navies of the world. In the midst of this enjoyment, September 4, he was suddenly told by the Marquis of Casa Yrujo that he had bought stolen goods, and that Spain as the rightful owner protested against the sale.[156]
Notwithstanding this strong measure, doubtless taken in obedience to orders, Yrujo was still true to his old friendship. On hearing of the cession, he did again what he had done eight months before, in the excitement about the entrepôt at New Orleans,—he tried to smooth difficulties and quiet alarms.
“The ports of Florida,” he wrote to Don Pedro Cevallos,[157] “as they would make it easy for us to annoy greatly the American commerce in case of a war, would in like degree furnish the Americans, if the Americans should possess them, the same means of annoying ours, and of carrying on an immense contraband trade from them, especially from Pensacola and Mobile, with our provinces in the Gulf of Mexico. This last is the chief evil which in my opinion will result from the acquisition of Louisiana by the Americans, and can only be diminished by numerous, watchful, and active revenue-cutters. For the rest I do not look on the alienation of Louisiana as a loss for Spain. That colony cost us much, and produced us very little.”
In short, Louisiana could not be defended by Spain, while as a part of the United States it would certainly weaken, and probably dissolve, the Union. As for the protest, he told[158] his Government, even before he received Madison’s reply, that nothing would come of it.
As late as Nov. 5, 1803, Yrujo continued to write in the same tone to his Government.
“The information I have received from trustworthy persons,” he said,[159] “in regard to the disposition in which General Victor was coming here, and the spirit of restlessness and almost of rapine which reigned among many of the officials in his army, leave me no doubt that the military colony of the French in Louisiana would have been in reality a worse neighbor than the Americans for us. Things have now taken such a turn, that in my humble opinion if we are to lose Louisiana, the choice whether that colony shall fall into the power of one nation rather than another is not worth the expense and trouble of a war, provided we preserve the Floridas.... I am convinced that this Government knows perfectly the national interests, and to promote them will follow in this respect a course of conduct which in proportion as it better suits our own, should inspire us with greater confidence.”