Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/432

1801. what was said, but hardly believed at the time, that the First Consul was not directly responsible for the act; but they also prove that the act was a consequence of the retrocession. The colonial system of Spain was clumsy and disconnected. Viceroys, governors, commandants, intendants, acted in Mexico, Cuba, New Orleans, Peru, everywhere without relation to each other. At New Orleans the Governor, Don Juan de Salcedo, was powerless to control the Intendant, Don Juan Ventura Morales, and no authority nearer than Madrid could decide between them. The entrepôt, or right of deposit, not only prevented the Spanish Intendant from imposing duties on American produce, but also covered a large amount of smuggling which further diminished the revenue. The Intendant, who had charge of the revenues, and was partly responsible for the large deficit which every year drained the resources of Spain to Louisiana, was forced to hear the complaints of the Treasury at Madrid, continually asking him to find a remedy, and at last, in one of its dispatches, letting slip the remark that "after all, the right of deposit was only for three years." The treaty of 1795 had in fact stipulated that the King of Spain would "permit the citizens of the United States, for the space of three years from this time, to deposit their merchandise and effects in the port of New Orleans, and to export them far from thence, without paying any other duty than a fair price for the hire of the stores; and his Majesty promises either to continue this permission