p123  Chapter IX
Yazoo

In the course of the year 1790 the New World contributed two barbaric names to the vocabulary of international diplomacy: Yazoo and Nootka. A year earlier these were familiar to none but Indians and a few venturesome fur traders. A year later the frontier of their fame had receded to the national archives of the states concerned in the controversies that had raged over the Yazoo River and Nootka Sound. But throughout the year 1790 and well into the following year, one or both of these names was on the lips of statesmen in Whitehall and State Street, at San Lorenzo and Versailles, and well-informed observers perceived the bond that united the Yazoo country on the Lower Mississippi with Nootka Sound far up the California coast. While one Scotch fur trader's activities on the Vancouver brought the British government on the verge of war with Spain, capitalists and frontiersmen of the Southern States brought on a similar crisis between the United States and Spain by their effort to break the Scot Panton's monopoly of the Southern Indian trade. The intricate intrigues of these two years imperilled first the integrity of the American Union and then the existence of the Spanish empire in North America.

Land speculation and the treaty-making power

First came the Yazoo episode. The establishment of the new federal government influenced in many important  p124 respects the development of the American West. The new government brought to the Westerner's doorstep and into his home the principle of close federal union, and yet the settlement of the West had been conceived and executed in a spirit of particularism. What its inhabitants thought of the new plan of government it is hard to say, for, while we have many evidences of widespread opposition to its adoption, we also know that its adoption was followed by the immediate collapse of the first intrigue between the frontiersmen and Spain.

There was one clause in the Constitution of 1787 which made the whole instrument unpopular in the West. This was the clause granting the President and two thirds of the Senate the treaty-making power. The reason for the frontiersmen's opposition to this clause has seldom been understood by historians, for they have generally assumed that what the "men of the Western waters" feared was that this power would be used to carry into effect Jay's plan of 1786 for bartering away the use of the Mississippi for a generation. It is true that a great deal was made of this point in the Virginia ratifying convention of 1788, and that Patrick Henry did raise the spectre of the Spanish treaty in order to defeat the proposed constitution. It is also true that, while Madison disposed of Henry's argument so effectually that it could have no further weight with any reasonable person, ten of the fourteen members from the district of Kentucky voted against the constitution; and that their opposition seems to have been due to the clause in question. Since these Kentucky members seem to have been at least normally intelligent persons, we must look elsewhere for an explanation of their action; and the explanation is  p125 not far to seek. It was not in reality the treaty with Spain that they feared, but treaties with the Indian tribes or "nations" as they were then called. Although the sovereignty of these tribes was not recognized, the various state governments, the Congress of the Confederation and after it the new federal government concluded treaties with them as if each tribe were a sovereign state. For example, the treaty of New York between the United States and the Creek "nation," which will be discussed in this chapter, was negotiated by the President and ratified by and with the advice of the Senate precisely as were Jay's treaty with England and the treaty of San Lorenzo with Spain. Now, while Madison could demonstrate with finality that the treaty-making clause would not lead to the surrender of the Mississippi claim, neither he nor any one else could convince the frontiersmen that the new government's policy in Indian affairs, its treaties with the Indian tribes, would be equally unobjectionable to them. For after all the Congress of the Confederation had not consummated, though it had authorized, the surrender of the Mississippi; but, on the other hand, it had pursued an Indian policy that was most offensive to the frontiersmen of the Southwest. Its treaty of Hopewell with the Cherokee, of which we have spoken elsewhere, had alienated expansionists and land speculators throughout the South.

Hence when it was proposed in the new constitution that the federal government be given still greater power in Indian relations, there was general alarm among all those interested in Southwestern expansion. Patrick Henry, who was speculating extensively in Southwestern lands, declared that there was a conspiracy on the part of the jealous Eastern States to check the development  p126 of the Southwest, and that the chief devices by which the conspirators designed to effect their purpose were the closing of the Mississippi and the protection of the Southern Indians.​1 Arthur Campbell of southwestern Virginia and Harry Innes of Kentucky took the same position, Innes going so far as to declare that in his opinion the interests of East and West were irreconcilable in Indian affairs and many other matters, that the West could never expect fair treatment from the dominant Eastern majority, and that the only remedy lay in the establishment of Western independence.2

It seems probable that this state of mind was one of the chief causes of the outburst of land speculation in the Old Southwest in the years 1789 and 1790, for a stronger federal government would be better able to prevent the development of the region. The expansionists must act before the national government was established firmly enough to interfere with them. Patrick Henry, whose notorious hostility to the new system we have already had occasion to mention, was one of the most active of this group of speculators, and lamented that age prevented his seeking refuge in the Southwest from national tyranny.

The Georgia land companies of 1789

In 1789 the first group of Yazoo companies, less notorious but no less important than the vintage of 1795, secured provisional grants of land in the Southwest from the state of Georgia.​3 There were three of these companies. The Tennessee Company, under the leader­ship of Zachariah Cox and with support in the Holston settlements, secured the Muscle Shoals district. The Virginia Company, among whose members were Patrick Henry and a wealthy merchant and  p127 fur trader, David Ross, obtained a grant on the Mississippi as close to Chickasaw Bluffs as Georgia's territorial claims would permit. The third and most active of these groups was the South Carolina Yazoo Company, whose organizers were South Carolinians and whose grant, lying on the Mississippi between the Yazoo River and the lands of the Virginia Company, included the important site of Walnut Hills at the mouth of the Yazoo River. Altogether some •fifteen million acres were included in these three grants.

Like Bourbon and Houston Counties of 1784‑85, these speculative schemes of 1789 were organized under the authority of the state of Georgia, but there were two important differences. In the first place, the state did not provide in the latter case for the extension of its political system over its western territory. It simply sold three enormous tracts of land, and made no attempt, through the establishment of county governments or otherwise, to supervise the founding of the new colonies or to establish any political connection with them. Moreover, since Georgia did not recognize the claim of Congress to this territory, it is difficult to see what bond was expected to unite the new colonies with the United States. In the second place, the South Carolina Yazoo Company, the most important of this group, made a determined effort — as had Sevier and White in their recent intrigue with Gardoqui and Miró — to enlist the support of the Spanish government. The speculators of 1784‑85, it will be remembered, acted either independently of Spain or even in direct opposition to it. This change of attitude indicates the impression that Spain had made on the Americans in the short space of five years. The lesson of the Bourbon County fiasco had not been lost upon them. In  p128 short, the particularist tendencies that had long characterized land speculation in the South were never more strikingly in evidence than in these schemes of 1789.

Many ambitious speculators, busy in 1788 with their private schemes, were drawn into the larger enterprise of the Yazoo companies. George Rogers Clark, George Morgan, James O'Fallon, James White, John Sevier, the baron von Steuben and others had approached the Spanish government, through Gardoqui and Governor Zéspedes of St. Augustine, with proposals for the establishment of colonies in Spanish territory or under Spanish protection.​4 Their proposals were due, at least in part, to the widespread report of Wilkinson's favorable reception at New Orleans in 1787.​5 O'Fallon's earliest correspondence with Zéspedes contains references to Wilkinson's visit to Miró and was apparently designed to discredit him with the Spanish government in order that O'Fallon might supplant him as Spain's agent in the Southwest. It seems likely that the proposals of George Rogers Clark to Gardoqui for the establishment of a colony in Upper Louisiana were, like those of O'Fallon, made in consequence of Wilkinson's rumored success at New Orleans. In 1786 Clark had seized the goods of Spanish merchants at Vincennes in retaliation for the closing of the Mississippi, and had threatened to invade Louisiana; but in 1788, just at the time of Wilkinson's return to Kentucky from New Orleans, he wrote Gardoqui proposing to establish a colony that would protect the dominions of His Catholic Majesty. The attempt of Sevier and White to secure Spanish support for their Muscle Shoals project has already been discussed; and it will be observed that they broached the subject to Spain only in 1788, after Wilkinson's return from New Orleans. In the same year  p129 Joseph Martin wrote McGillivray in connection with a colony that he proposed to establish on the Tombigbee river, presumably under Spanish authority. Wilkinson himself was seized with the rage for speculation that his return had done so much to cause, and addressed Gardoqui a letter proposing that he, John Brown, Sebastian and Harry Innes establish a colony under Spanish authority in the Walnut Hills district.6

The Yazoo project

Most of these speculators were drawn into the ambitious project of the South Carolina Yazoo Company. James O'Fallon was appointed general agent of the company. On his arrival in Kentucky he engaged James Wilkinson, and later George Rogers Clark, to support the company's undertaking. John Sevier, hearing of the plan, had already written asking admission to member­ship, and his services were accepted.​7 The organizers of the company were probably associated with earlier speculative schemes, such as Bourbon and Houston Counties, in both of which several South Carolinians were interested, among them Wade Hampton.

One of the directors of the company was "poor Tom Washington," as O'Fallon called him two years later when Tom was hanged in South Carolina for counterfeiting.​8 The other directors were William Clay Snipes, Isaac Huger and Alexander Moultrie, reputed men of fortune and influence in South Carolina. The last two certainly bear names that are respectably familiar in the history of the state, and Moultrie had but recently held the office of governor. Their agent, James O'Fallon, was one of the most verbose and unimaginative liars that ever penned a letter. His copious but undisciplined  p130 vocabulary convinced the undiscriminating of his erudition, but few were deceived by his numerous and equally undisciplined lies. Formerly a doctor and formerly also, it was said, a Catholic priest, he threw himself into Charleston municipal politics at the close of the Revolution, aiding the popular party in its effort to drive the dominant conservatives from power. The failure of this attempt induced O'Fallon to try his talents elsewhere, and, as we have seen, it was the report of Wilkinson's journey the New Orleans in 1787 that pointed out to this Irish Catholic his next field of endeavor.

His race and faith made it easier for him to approach Governor Zéspedes of the neighboring town of St. Augustine. Zéspedes was not at all favorably impressed by O'Fallon's colonization proposals, but since rumors were rife that the American frontiersmen were planning to invade the Spanish dominions, he encouraged the Irishman's correspondence as a source of information that might prove valuable. In order to keep O'Fallon longer in suspense, he directed him to forward his colonization scheme to the court through Gardoqui, the proper channel for communications from citizens of the United States. Don Diego was quite as skeptical as Zéspedes, but, with the same object as the governor of St. Augustine, he replied with vague courtesy to O'Fallon's proposals, promising to forward them to the court.9

This Spanish connection got O'Fallon nothing from Spain, but his expectations in that quarter and his influence with the South Carolina Yazoo Company seem to have been responsible for the company's determined effort to secure the support of the Spanish government for its colony. Director Moultrie wrote  p131 Alexander McGillivray and the wealthy Benjamin Farrar of Natchez, while Tom Washington approached another influential inhabitant of Natchez district, Peter Bryan Bruin, in order not only to enlist their individual support for the company, but also through them to conciliate Spain.​10 The democrat O'Fallon, however, was its chief ambassador to the Bourbon autocracy. With the company's secret instructions in his pocket O'Fallon journeyed to Kentucky. These instructions​11 directed him to win the friendship of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, to proceed at once to occupy the company's grant and to assure the Spaniards of its ardent desire to cultivate amicable relations with them and of its determination to establish an independent state which would serve as a barrier between the United States and the Spanish possessions in North America. The comprehensive commercial designs of the company are manifest in the letters of O'Fallon and still more in those of Moultrie and Washington. They included the slave trade, trade with the Indians and land speculation; and Walnut Hills was designed as the entrepôt for the commerce of the whole of the Mississippi Valley above that point. It was but natural, however, that in letters intended for Spanish eyes the political aspect should be emphasized. Moultrie wrote of the large amount of European capital engaged in the enterprise and the anti-federalism of its American members. O'Fallon fairly outdid himself in expressions of devotion to Spain and of abhorrence for the United States.​12 Postulating an Irishman's hereditary love for Spain and misrepresenting shamelessly and foolhardily the nature of his relations with Zéspedes and Gardoqui, he pictured the company as converted by his influence into zealous Hispanophiles  p132 panting for an alliance with the Bourbon monarch against the United States. At the very same time he was writing in this tone to Miró, O'Fallon addressed an equally perfervid letter to President Washington, denouncing Spanish tyranny and offering to conquer New Orleans with the company's forces and turn it over to the United States government, if only the administration would give the company's enterprise its approval.13

Unscrupulous as he was, O'Fallon could not dissimulate. Indeed, one is inclined to accept Wilkinson's interested but apt description of him as a "vain blockhead." Even when his first obligation was to reassure the Spaniards, he could not resist the temptation to boast of his strength and to warn Miró that, in case Spain refused to sanction the enterprise, the company would resort to the use of armed force and would have the aid of thousands of soldiers from Cumberland, Franklin, Kentucky, the British in Canada, and even — through a suicidal charity, we must suppose — of the United States government itself.

The absurd maladroitness of this "vain blockhead" must not blind us to the importance of the project. It carried on a powerful tradition of American life, the tradition of colonization by capitalistic enterprise. It made a strong appeal to the interest of the investor and, as a venture in state-making, it caught the imagination of the romantic. Many people of influence in the South Atlantic States and on the Western frontier were committed to its prosecution, and it was legitimated by a grant from the state of Georgia. It was a far more formidable undertaking than Richard Henderson's Transylvania Company, so influential in the founding of Kentucky, and it gave greater promise  p133 of success. For the new federal government, its success would be a calamity. It would alarm the Indians and perhaps precipitate that general Indian war which Washington was striving so earnestly to avoid. It would bring on a crisis in the relations of the United States with Spain. If Spain sanctioned the establishment of the colony, it would undoubtedly be on condition of alliance or incorporation, thus imperiling the territorial integrity of the United States and prejudicing infinitely the pending diplomatic negotiation. If on the other hand Spain refused to sanction the settlement and opposed it with armed force, war might result, and the United States government, as much as it might deplore the cause, would almost certainly be involved. Hence the execution of the scheme must at all costs be prevented.

Checkmating the speculators

One of President Washington's first steps was to issue a proclamation warning the public against the lawless projects of the companies.​14 Georgia's territorial claims, though still disputed by Congress, were not called into question by the proclamation, which was based on the federal government's control of Indian relations and on the treaties of Hopewell of 1786 whereby the perpetual possession of the lands involved was guaranteed to the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes by Congress. Governor Blount of the Southwest Territory was directed to enforce this proclamation, and a mission was sent to the Indians to prevent them from giving any aid to the companies.15

Washington's next step was to prevent McGillivray and the Creek Indians from supporting the companies' project.​16 This was especially necessary because of the  p134 strength of the tribe, McGillivray's influence over them and the other Southern Indians, and the efforts of the South Carolina Yazoo Company to draw him into their project. The company claimed that it had succeeded in doing so, and letters from Moultrie and others to McGillivray on the subject were found by Panton among the half-breed's papers during his absence from home in 1790, but, other than his own statement that he gave them some encouragement in order to discover their designs,​17 there is no evidence that he actually joined the company. Even had he done so, Panton would certainly have used all his powerful influence to destroy the connection, for all of these schemes were obviously designed to break his monopoly of the Southern fur trade. Washington, however, could not be certain of this, and in any case he could not afford to rely on this British favorite of the Spanish government for the performance of a service so essential to the interests of the United States. The federal government itself must detach McGillivray from any connection he might have formed with the Georgia land companies.

There were other pressing reasons for the conclusion of a treaty with the Creek. The war between these Indians and the Georgians had continued intermittently ever since its outbreak in 1787, despite the repeated efforts of the Congress of the Confederation to secure peace, and Washington feared a general Indian war in the West. One of the very first measures of his administration was the appointment of a commission of three influential and disinterested persons to go to the Georgia frontier, inquire into the grievances of both parties, and arrange an accommodation. Again the negotiation ended in failure. The immediate reason for the breaking off of the conferences was apparently  p135 McGillivray's dislike for the chief negotiator, Colonel David Humphreys, whose overbearing manner seemed intolerable to the sensitive half-breed. McGillivray's first impulse after his withdrawal was an Indian's impulse: to avenge himself for the Connecticut Yankee's insults by scalping the Georgia frontiersmen; but Miró urgently advised him not to continue hostilities, and he thought better of it.18

There was a deeper reason for the failure of the negotiations. While the Spanish government repeatedly urged McGillivray to make peace with the Georgians, Miró as often charged him to confine himself to a treaty of friendship and limits, never to agree to any terms that conflicted with the treaty of Pensacola of 1784, and above all to refuse to make any concession to the Americans in respect to trade or sovereignty.​19 This latter point was all the more important because of its bearing on the negotiation pending between the United States and Spain. While McGillivray had been deeply offended with Miró in 1788 because the latter, on orders from the court, had cut off the Indians' munitions supply in order to induce them to make peace with the Georgians, his resentment had led to no more serious consequences than his brief intrigue with Bowles, which we have already mentioned. The breach was soon healed, Miró reopened the Spanish magazines to the Creek, and McGillivray professed himself the unwavering champion of Spanish interests. Just before he and his fellow-chiefs left to meet the American commissioners he received through Panton, Leslie and Company a fresh supply of munitions which, as Panton prophesied, enabled him to "talk strong" in the ensuing conference. Unable to agree with the commissioners on trade, limits or sovereignty, McGillivray  p136 needed little provocation to make him break off the negotiation and return to his plantation on the Coosa.

The commissioners naturally laid all the blame on McGillivray and declared war inevitable, and the secretary of war, General Henry Knox, was of the same mind. It was felt in government circles, however, that the commissioners were not themselves blameless, and that, as Senator Maclay put it, Knox was moved by the very natural desire to "labor in his vocation."​20 As a last resort, Washington sent Colonel Marinus Willetº as his personal messenger to invite McGillivray to come to New York with his chiefs and make a final effort for a peaceful settlement. Meanwhile Miró had received with something approaching consternation the news of the failure of the recent peace conference and the imminent danger that the United States would now at last aid the Georgians against the Creek. Once begun, there was no telling where such a conflict might end, for it was commonly believed that the Indians' ravages had been instigated by Spain. Miró therefore urged McGillivray to accept at once any offer that might lead to the renewal of negotiations, and only cautioned him not to forget his obligations to Spain. This was the situation when Willet arrived, and, in view of Miró's admonitions, it is not surprising that McGillivray accepted the invitation and set out for New York with more than a score of chiefs and interpreters without waiting to consult Miró or even Panton.21

McGillivray riding on horseback and the chiefs seated sedately on waggons, the cavalcade journeyed northward. Fêted at Richmond, the party was met at Murray's wharf in New York by a military escort and by the largest crowd that had assembled since Washington's inauguration fifteen months earlier. The  p137 necessities of the federal government and the incipient romantic movement secured for these noble savages a warm welcome. Presented to the secretary of war and the president, they were lavishly entertained by government officials and others, including the Order of St. Tammany, and in turn regaled their hosts with a war dance.22

The Treaty of New York

This flattering reception and the distribution of pensions among McGillivray and his companions secured the terms desired by the United States government. The treaty was concluded on August 7, 1790, and a week later McGillivray went so far as to sign an oath of allegiance to the United States.​23 By the treaty, the Creek recognized the sovereignty of the United States so far as their towns lay within its limits. McGillivray gave up his claim to the boundary of 1772, though the territorial concessions that he made were not extensive enough to satisfy the Georgians. All traders without a license from the United States government were to be excluded from the Creek towns. The latter were authorized to expel by force any intruders on the lands guaranteed them by the treaty. Although this clause appeared in the earlier treaties of Hopewell, McGillivray wrote Miró later that in this case it was directed against the Georgia land companies, and that he was repeatedly urged during the conferences preceding the treaty to break up the companies' settlements, should any be made.

Two secret articles were added.​24 One of them was written under the influence of the Nootka crisis that had just arisen between Spain and England. It was provided that in case the Creek trade by way of the Floridas  p138 should be interrupted by war or otherwise, $50,000 worth of goods annually might be imported duty free through the United States into the Creek country. It is possible that the whole treaty as well as this article was agreed to by McGillivray because of the Nootka crisis. War between Spain and England seemed inevitable, and the defeat of Spain and the disorganization of Panton's trade, at least for a time, seemed no less certain. The treaty of New York was McGillivray's provision against the rainy day that seemed at hand.

The other secret article provided that in satisfaction of his claims against the state of Georgia McGillivray should receive a pension of eighteen hundred dollars a year from the United States government. This was three times the amount of the only remuneration that he was receiving from Spain at that time, namely, a salary of six hundred dollars a year as the commissioner of Spain among the Creek Indians. The munificence of this new pension must have had great weight with McGillivray, who lived in the generous manner of a Southern gentleman and, like most Southern gentlemen, was often embarrassed for ready cash.

In the triangular contest between the United States government, Spain and the Georgia land companies for the support of the Creek Indians, the former had apparently won a complete victory.​25 So far as McGillivray's relations with Spain were concerned, the victory was not lasting. Panton's friendship and the alternate threats and persuasion of Miró and Carondelet, who raised his salary first to two thousand and then to thirty-five hundred dollars, delayed its execution several years.​26 The mere fact that the treaty was negotiated, however, was in itself an achievement of lasting importance. Despite Carondelet's attempt in 1792 to demonstrate  p139 its invalidity, the treaty was negotiated with at least as much formality as most of Carondelet's treaties with the Southern Indian tribes, and as most treaties between white men and Indians. Consequently it afforded the United States what a strong power usually seeks in a treaty with a weaker neighbor: a legal basis for future penetration. Since the application of the treaty was restricted to the Creek towns lying within the United States and since most of the Creek towns were situated in the territory still in dispute between Spain and the United States, the precise significance of the treaty remained in doubt until the two powers came to an agreement as to the location of the southern boundary of the United States. In two respects the treaty was immediately beneficial to the United States: The imminent resumption of the Georgia-Creek war was averted, and McGillivray's aid was enlisted against the Georgia land companies. In both respects, it is curious to note, Spanish interests and Spanish policy coincided with those of the United States.

---

The Author's Notes:

 p235  1 Draper MSS., XI DD 87a, Henry to Joseph Martin, March 10, 1790; W. W. Henry, Patrick Henry, III, 412‑15.

2 Draper MSS., IX DD 48, Col. A. Campbell to "Mr. Davis" (June, 1788); ib., IX DD 51, Harry Innes to A. Campbell, Sept. 19, 1788.

3 A. S. P., I. A., I, 112‑13; C. H. Haskins, "The Yazoo Land Companies," in Am. Hist. Assn., Papers, V, 395 et seq.; AI, PC, Wilkinson to Miró, l. 2374, April 29, 1790.

4 AHN, E, l. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, April 18, 1788, No. 252 (von Steuben); AI, PC, l. 104, Gardoqui to Miró, Oct. 4, 1788 (Morgan); AHN, E, l. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, July 25, 1788, No. 280 (O'Fallon); ib., same to same, same date, No. 282, enclosing Spanish translation of letter from G. R. Clark to Gardoqui, March 15, 1788.

5 AI, PC, l. 2373, Wilkinson to (Miró and Navarro), March 16, 1788; ib., 86‑6‑8, Miró to Valdés, Nov. 3, 1788, No. 29, res., enclosing a Spanish translation of a news item in the Pennsylvania Gazette (Carlisle), Aug. 6, 1788. For O'Fallon, see note 4, above.

6 AHN, E, l. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, June 25, 1789, No. 316, and enclosures.

7 Draper MSS., Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, V, 72, Alexander Moultrie to John Sevier, March 8, 1790.

8 AI, PC, l. 2374, James O'Fallon to Wilkinson, April 10, 1791, copy.

9 AHN, E, l. 3894, Gardoqui to Floridablanca, July 25, 1788, No. 280, enclosing Spanish translation of O'Fallon to Gardoqui, May 26, 1788; AI, PC, l. 2373, unsigned document in Wilkinson's handwriting, stating that these "crude memorandums" were designed for Miró and Navarro.

10 Ib., l. 202, Moultrie to Farrar, Jan. 24, 1790; l. 203, Moultrie to McGillivray, Feb. 19, 1790, copy; l. 2371, T. Washington to Col. Bruin, March 16, 1790.

11 Draper MSS., Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, V, South Carolina, 73, dated March 9, 1790.

12 AI, PC, l. 2371, O'Fallon to Miró, May 13, 1790, and May 24, 1790; ib., l. 1446, same to same, July 16, 1790, Spanish translation, enclosed in Miró to Las Casas, Oct. 7, 1790 No. 9 res.

 p236  13 Ib., l. 2374, Wilkinson to Miró, March 19, 1791, enclosing copy of letter to Wilkinson from J(ohn) B(rown), Feb. 10, 1791.

14 AI, 86‑6‑20, Las Casas to Campo de Alange, Aug. 3, 1791, No. 12 res., enclosing copy of Washington's proclamation of March 19, 1791, referring to earlier proclamations of Aug. 14 and 26, 1790.

15 A. S. P., I. A., I, 112‑13; "Correspondence of General James Robertson," in American Hist. Mag., I, 192‑93.

16 AI, PC, l. 203, McGillivray to Miró (original) and to Panton (copy), May 8, 1790, reported that Col. Willett,º agent of President Washington, said that the United States government desired a treaty with the Creek as a means of defeating the Georgia companies.

17 AI, PC, l. 203, McGillivray to Panton, May 8, 1790.

18 A. S. P., I. A., I, 65‑68; F. L. Humphreys, Life of David Humphreys, II, 4‑15; E. S. Maclay, ed., Journal of William Maclay, 128‑33; AI, PC, l. 202, McGillivray to Miró, Dec. 10, 1789.

19 AI, PC, l. 202 (Miró) to McGillivray, July 22, 1789, draft; l. 4, Miró to O'Neill, March 24, 1787, muy res.; AHN, E, AJE, June 14, 1790.

20 A. S. P., I. A., I, 75; Fitzpatrick, ed., Diaries of George Washington, IV, 54; Maclay, ed., Journal of William Maclay, 174‑75.

21 Fitzpatrick, ed., Diaries of George Washington, IV, 95‑96. Washington, recording a conference with Willett, says they discussed "such lures as respected McGillivray personally . . ."; AI, PC, l. 203, Panton to Miró, July 12, 1790.

22 New York Journal (newspaper), July 9, 23, 30, Aug. 3, 10 and 17, 1790.

23 Knox Papers (MSS., Mass. History. Soc.), vol. XXVI, fol. 145, witnessed by Justice John Blair of the United States Supreme Court.

24 At my request, Prof. S. F. Bemis searched for these articles in the Archives of the Department of State, Washington, and informed me that they are to be found there together with the public treaty. See Pickett, History of Alabama, 406, 407.

25 Gov. Zéspedes of St. Augustine sent his secretary, Carlos Howard, to New York in a vain effort to keep McGillivray loyal: AI, PC, l. 1440, Zéspedes to Cabello, June 1, 1790; Fitzpatrick, ed., Diaries of George Washington, IV, 132‑33.

26 AI, PC, l. 203, (Miró) to McGillivray, Nov. 20, 1790, draft; AHN, E, l. 3898, Carondelet to Aranda, July 7, 1792, No. 4 res.

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