These three papers were too important to be forgotten. French diplomatic writings were models of concise, impassive clearness, contrasting with the diffuse and argumentative, if not disputatious, style which sometimes characterized American and Spanish official correspondence. These three short letters offered examples of French methods. The first was addressed to General Turreau at Washington, and concerned the boundaries of Louisiana toward the west:[210]—
“If the Mississippi and the Iberville trace with precision the eastern boundary of that colony, it has less precise limits to the westward. No river, no chain of mountains, separates it from the Spanish possessions; and between the last settlements of Louisiana and the first of those in the Spanish colonies are frequently to be found intervals so great as to make a line of demarcation difficult to agree upon. So Spain already appears to fear that the United States, who show an intention of forcing back the western limits of Louisiana, may propose to advance in this direction to the ocean, and establish themselves on that part of the American coast which lies north of California.”
Turreau was directed to divert the United States government from the idea of extension toward the west and northwest in any manner that might annoy Spain. He was to employ means of persuasion and friendly influence for this purpose, rather than to act officially; all official action being reserved for objects directly interesting France.
The second document[211] was also addressed to Turreau, but was more decided in tone, as though the Emperor himself had dictated its language. After a brief allusion to Pinckney’s claims convention and the American theory that Spain was responsible for French spoliations which she had not prevented, Talleyrand continued:—
“That convention, made under date of Aug. 11, 1802, is posterior by—months to that which France concluded with the United States, the 8th Vendemiaire, An ix. (30 Sept. 1800), and which declared that no indemnity should be given for prizes made by either of the two Powers. This Article ought to leave the Americans no hope that prizes made against them on Spanish shores would be excepted and paid for; it would be useless for them to suppose that it is Spain from whom they seek these indemnities: Spain, who would have only the advances to pay, would afterward recur to France for reimbursement. It is, then, upon France that this charge would ultimately fall; and as we are relieved by the convention of Sept. 30, 1800, from every kind of debt relating to prizes, we can only with some surprise see the United States seeking to obtain from another government a part of the indemnities which they had decidedly renounced in their convention with France. Spain had doubtless lost sight of these considerations, and had not in view this convention of ours, when her plenipotentiary signed that of Aug. 11, 1802, which the United States now require her to ratify. Circumstances which have since taken place have, fortunately, furnished Spain with an occasion for retracing the false step she took in signing this convention. The Federal government, which by different acts relative to the Floridas has violated the sovereign rights of Spain, and which for more than eighteen months has refused to ratify its convention with her, has lost the right to complain because the Court of Madrid now imitates its refusal, and insists upon making such modifications in this treaty as the lapse of time may make it think necessary and better suited to its rights and dignity.”
After sending these instructions to Turreau, the French Minister for Foreign Relations next turned to Spain, and wrote a note intended to reassure Cevallos. The peculiar interest of this document lay in the spirit it showed toward the United States. Cevallos had invited an understanding as to the boundaries of Louisiana to be alleged against the United States. These boundaries, defined eighteen months before in the secret instructions for Victor, a copy of which was given to Laussat, declared the Rio Bravo to be the western limit of Louisiana:[212] “Bounded on the west by the river called Rio Bravo, from the mouth of this stream up to the 30th parallel, beyond this point the line of demarcation ceases to be traced, and it seems that there has never been an agreement as to this part of the frontier.” That Laussat meant to act on these instructions was proved by his language to Governor Claiborne and General Wilkinson.[213] “M. Laussat confidentially signified” to these two American commissioners that the territory “did not comprehend any part of West Florida; adding at the same time that it extended westwardly to the Rio Bravo, otherwise called Rio del Norte.” Although Cevallos had remonstrated against the indiscretion of this statement, he had not suggested that Laussat was in error;[214] he merely invited Talleyrand to check a subordinate officer, in order to limit American pretensions. In accordance with this hint, Talleyrand marked for the Spanish government the line it was to take in resisting the American claim to territory for which France had received the purchase money.
After defining the western boundary of Florida as fixed by treaty at the Iberville and the Mississippi rivers, the French minister instructed the Spanish government as follows:[215]—
“The western limit of Louisiana not having been fixed in a manner equally precise by the treaties which preceded that of March 21, 1801, nor by that treaty itself, the uncertainty which prevailed in regard to the direction of its frontiers has necessarily continued since the cession made to the United States. France could not even take upon herself to indicate to the United States what ought to be that precise limit, for fear of wounding on this point the pretensions of one or the other Power directly interested in this question. It would have become the object of negotiation between his Imperial and his Catholic Majesties. To-day it can be treated only between Spain and the United States. Nevertheless, as the Americans derive their rights from France, I have been enabled to express to his Imperial Majesty’s minister plenipotentiary near the United States the chief bases on which the Emperor would have planted himself in the demand for a demarcation of boundaries. Starting from the Gulf of Mexico, we should have sought to distinguish between settlements that belong to the kingdom of Mexico, and settlements that had been formed by the French or by those who succeeded them in this colony. This distinction between settlements formed by the French or by the Spaniards would have been made equally in ascending northwards. All those which are of French foundation would have belonged to Louisiana; and since European settlements in the interior are rare and scattered, we might have imagined direct lines drawn from one to the other to connect them; and it is to the west of this imaginary line that the boundary between Louisiana and the Spanish possessions would have been traced at such distance and in such direction as France and Spain should have agreed. The great spaces which sometimes exist between the last French settlements and the last Spanish missions might have left still some doubts on the direction of the boundary to be traced between them, but with the views of friendship and conciliation which animate their Majesties, these difficulties would have been soon smoothed away.”
Such were, according to Talleyrand, the conciliatory intentions which should have animated his Imperial Majesty. They were widely different from the positive instructions formally approved by the First Consul Nov. 26, 1802, which ordered Victor and Laussat to consider the Rio Bravo as the boundary of their command. The difference was the whole province of Texas.
On another point Talleyrand reassured the Spanish government.