Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/316

1804. 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 Flordas 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 it 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