Early in February, 1804, Madison sent these new instructions to Pinckney, inclosing the ratified treaty, and instructing him in effect to press the reserved claims for French spoliations in Spanish ports. The despatch reached Pinckney in May, and he went at once to Cevallos for the ratification. To his great annoyance Cevallos made difficulties. During the discussion, Cevallos received from Yrujo a copy of the Mobile Act, which he sent to Pinckney May 31, with a demand for explanations. Pinckney replied in a tone little short of dictatorial.[189]
“Permit me on this subject to remind your Excellency,” said he, “that on the first intelligence being received of the cession of Louisiana, I communicated verbally to your Excellency and the Prince of Peace the contents of an official letter I had received from Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monroe, informing me that they considered a great part of West Florida, as so called by the English, as included. Such letter could not have been written officially to me by them without their having been so informed by the French plenipotentiary and government.”
Pinckney urged that the two subjects should be kept separate. “Do not show the United States that you have no confidence either in their honor or justice,—qualities on which they value themselves more than on power or wealth.”
Unfortunately Pinckney’s note obliged Spain to show want of confidence in the “honor or justice” of the United States, unless indeed she meant to acquiesce in losing Florida as well as Louisiana. Pinckney next appealed to the French ambassador for help.[190] “I took the course of giving Mr. Pinckney an obliging but vague answer,” said Beurnonville, writing for instructions to Talleyrand. Cevallos, on his side, wrote to Admiral Gravina, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, instructing him to remonstrate with Talleyrand against Pinckney’s conduct. After a month’s delay, Cevallos, in answer to Pinckney’s letters, sent a sharp note,[191] offering to ratify the convention on three conditions,—one being that the reserved claim for French spoliations should be abandoned, and another that the Mobile Act should be revoked.
Without waiting for further instructions, or even consulting Monroe at London, Pinckney next wrote to Cevallos a letter which surpassed all indiscretions that Madison could have imagined. Requesting Cevallos “merely to answer this question,” whether ratification was refused except on the conditions specified, he added:[192]—
“I wish to have your Excellency’s answer as quickly as possible, as on Tuesday I send a courier with circular letters to all our consuls in the ports of Spain, stating to them the critical situation of things between Spain and the United States, the probability of a speedy and serious misunderstanding, and directing them to give notice thereof to all our citizens; advising them so to arrange and prepare their affairs as to be able to move off within the time limited by the treaty, should things end as I now expect. I am also preparing the same information for the commander of our squadron in the Mediterranean, for his own notice and government, and that of all the American merchant-vessels he may meet.”
Cevallos immediately answered[193] that as he could not comprehend the motive for “breaking out in the decisions, not to say threats,” of this letter, or how it was possible that Pinckney could have the authority of his government for such conduct, he should by the King’s order transfer the negotiation to Washington. Pinckney rejoined by despatching his circular letter, which created a panic in the Mediterranean. He then informed Cevallos that so soon as his affairs could be arranged, he should send for his passports and quit Madrid.[194]
Although this step was in the highest degree improper, Pinckney had some excuse for his conduct. Left without instructions in the face of an emergency which might have been foreseen at Washington, he argued that his government, which had officially annexed West Florida, meant to support its acts with a strong hand. He thought that the issue presented by Cevallos was such as the President was bound to take up, and he knew that the only chance of carrying the points which the President had at heart was in energetic action. For three years he had watched the peremptory tone of France and England at Madrid, and had been assured by the common voice of his diplomatic colleagues that threats alone could extort action from the Spanish government. He had seen the Prince of Peace, after resorting to one subterfuge after another, repeatedly forced to cower before the two great robbers who were plundering Spain, and he explained to Madison the necessity of imitating their example if the President meant that Spain should cower before the United States. Perhaps he felt that Godoy looked on the President at Washington as the jackal of Bonaparte, and he may have wished to prove that America could act alone. His eager ambition to make himself as important as the representatives of France and England in the eyes of Europe might imply vanity, but rested also on logic.
The first result of this energetic tone was not what Pinckney had hoped. Cevallos was outwardly unmoved; Pinckney’s violence only caused him to lay aside that courtesy which was the usual mark of Spanish manners. His official notes were in outward form still civil enough, but in two or three conversations Pinckney listened to a series of remarks as blunt as though Lord Harrowby were the speaker. Pinckney reported to Madison the tenor of these rough rejoinders.[195] Cevallos told him that the Americans, ever since their independence, had been receiving the most pointed proofs of friendship and generosity from Spain, who, as was well known, received no benefit from them,—on the contrary, their commerce was extremely injurious to Spain; the Spanish government had ten times more trouble with them than with any other nation, and for his part, he did not wish to see the trade with the United States extended. Spain had nothing to fear from the United States, and had heard with contempt the threats of senators like Ross and Gouverneur Morris. The Americans had no right to expect much kindness from the King; in the purchase of Louisiana they had paid no attention to his repeated remonstrances against the injustice and nullity of that transaction, whereas if they had felt the least friendship they would have done so. They were well known to be a nation of calculators, bent on making money and nothing else; the French, and probably in the result all the nations having possessions in the West Indies, would be materially injured by them, for without a doubt it was entirely owing to the United States that St. Domingo was in its present situation.
Pinckney received[196] at the same time what he called secret intelligence on which he could implicitly rely, that Cevallos meant to create indefinite delays to the ratification, for Yrujo had written that neither these nor the French spoliation claims, nor West Florida, would induce the American government to depart from its pacific system. France had indeed gone to the point of advising and even commanding Spain to relinquish her claim on Louisiana, and this was the reason why Spain had so quietly given it up; but in regard to the spoliations, France preferred not to see them paid, as the more money Spain paid America the less she could pay France, and France knew as well as Spain how little serious was the American government in the idea of abandoning its neutrality.