territory. Gouverneur Morris assented to the necessity of a law for setting a limit to American dominion. "Our empire," said Jay, then president of congress, "is already too great to be well governed; and its constitution is inconsistent with the passion for conquest;" and as he smoked his pipe at the house of Gerard he warmly commended the triple alliance of France, the United States, and Spain.

From the study of their forms of government, Vergennes represented to Spain that "there was no ground for seeing in this new people a race of conquerors. Their republic," he said, "unless they amend its defects, which from the diversity and even antagonism of their interests appears to me very difficult, will never be anything more than a feeble body, capable of little activity." To allay the fears of Florida Blanca, Vergennes, in October, without demanding the like confidence from Spain, enumerated as the only conditions which France would exact for herself at the peace: the treaty of Utrecht wholly continued or wholly abrogated; freedom to restore the harbor of Dunquerque; the coast of Newfoundland from Cape Bonavista to Cape St. John, with the exclusive fishery from Cape Bonavista to Point Riche.

From this time Florida Blanca was in earnest in wishing Spain to take part in the war. But his demands, in comparison with the moderation of France, were so extravagant that he was ashamed himself to give them utterance; and in November, saying that the king of Spain could not be induced to engage in the war except for great objects, he requested Vergennes to suggest to him the advantages which France would bind itself to secure to Spain before listening to propositions for peace. To Montmorin he verbally explained his demands in both hemispheres. As to Europe, he said: "Without Gibraltar, I will never consent to a peace.' "How are you to gain the place?" asked Montmorin; and he replied: "By siege it is impossible; Gibraltar must be taken in Ireland or in England." Montmorin rejoined: "The English must be reduced very low before they can cede Gibraltar, unless the Spaniards first get possession of it." "If our operations succeed," answered Florida Blanca, "England will be compelled to subscribe to the law that we shall dictate." At the same VOL. V.-20

time he frankly avowed that France must undertake the invasion of Great Britain alone; even the junction of the fleets to protect the landing must be of short duration.

Early in February 1779, Lafayette, after a short winter passage from Boston to Brest, rejoined his family and friends. His departure for America in the preceding year, against the command of his king, was atoned for by a week's exile to Paris, and confinement to the house of his father-in-law. The king then received him at Versailles with a gentle reprimand; the queen addressed him with eager curiosity: "Tell us good news of our dear republicans, of our beloved Americans." His fame, his popularity, the influence of his rank, were all employed in behalf of the United States. Accustomed to see great interests sustained by small means, he grudged the prodigality which expended on a single festival at court as much as would have equipped the American army. "To clothe it," said Maurepas, "he would be glad to strip Versailles." He found a ministry neglecting the main question of American independence, and half unconscious of being at Public opinion in France had veered about, and everybody clamored for peace, which was to be hastened by the active alliance with Spain.

war.

All the while the Spanish government, in its intercourse with England, sedulously continued its offers of mediation. Lest its ambassador at London should betray the secret, he was kept in the dark. Lord Grantham, the British ambassador at Madrid, was completely hoodwinked; and wrote home in January 1779: "I really believe this court is sincere in wishing to bring about a pacification." At the end of March the king of England still confided in the neutrality of Spain. Acting from her own interests alone, Spain evaded the question of American independence, and offered England her mediation on the basis of a truce of twenty-five or thirty years, to be granted by the king of England with the concurrence of Spain and France. This offer called forth the most earnest expostulations of Vergennes, till Lord Weymouth put it aside; for he held that, if independence was to be conceded to the new states, it must be conceded "directly to congress, that it might be made the basis of all the advantages to Great Britain which so desirable

an object might seem to be worth." England, in establishing its relations with America, whether as dependencies or as states, reserved to itself complete freedom.

Meantime, Vergennes, on the twelfth of February, forwarded the draft of a convention which yielded to Spain all that she required, except that its fourth article maintained the independence of the United States. "In respect to this," he wrote, "our engagements are precise, and it is not possible for us to retract them. Spain must share them, if she makes common cause with us." Yet the article was persistently cavilled at, as in itself useless, and misplaced in a treaty of France with Spain; and Florida Blanca remarked with ill-humor how precisely the treaty stipulated "that arms should not be laid down" till American independence should be obtained, while it offered only a vague promise "of every effort" to procure the objects in which Spain was interested. "Efface the difference," answered Montmorin, "and employ the same expressions for both stipulations." The Spanish minister caught at the unwary offer, and in this way it was agreed that peace should not be made without the restoration of Gibraltar. Fired by the prospect which now opened before him, the king of Spain pictured to himself the armies of France breaking in upon the English at their firesides; and Florida Blanca said to Montmorin: "The news of the rupture must become first known to the world by a landing in England. With union, secrecy, and firmness, we shall be able to put our enemies under our feet; but no decisive blow can be struck at the English except in England itself."

All this time the Spanish minister avoided fixing the epoch for joint active measures. "The delay," said Vergennes, “can be attributed only to that spirit of a pettifogger which formed the essence of his first profession. I cry out less at his repugnance to guarantee American independence; to suitable concessions from the Americans we assuredly make no opposition."

Discussing with Montmorin the article relating to the Americans, Florida Blanca said: "The king, my master, will never acknowledge their independence, until the English themselves shall be forced to recognise it by the peace. He fears the example which he should otherwise give to his own pos

sessions." "As well acknowledge their independence as accord them assistance," began Montmorin; but the minister cut him short, saying: "Nothing will come of your insisting on this article."

Now that no more was to be gained, Florida Blanca made a draft of a convention, and suddenly presented it to Montmorin. A few verbal corrections were agreed upon, and on the evening of the twelfth of April the treaty was signed.

By its terms, France bound herself to undertake the invasion of Great Britain or Ireland; if she could drive the British from Newfoundland, its fisheries were to be shared only with Spain. For trifling benefits to be acquired for herself, she promised to use every effort to recover for Spain Minorca, Pensacola and Mobile, the bay of Honduras and the coast of Campeachy; and the two courts bound themselves not to grant peace, nor truce, nor suspension of hostilities, until Gibraltar should be restored.

This convention of France with Spain modified the treaty between France and America. The Americans were not bound to continue the war till Gibraltar should be taken; still less, till Spain should have carried out a policy hostile to their interests. They gained the right to make peace whenever Great Britain would recognise their independence.

The Mississippi river is the guardian and the pledge of the union of the states of America. Had they been confined to the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, there would have been no geographical unity between them, and the thread of connection between states that merely fringed the Atlantic must soon have been sundered. The father of rivers gathers his waters from all the clouds that break between the Alleghanies and the farthest ranges of the Rocky Mountains. The ridges of the eastern chain bow their heads at the North and at the South; so that, long before science became the companion of man, nature herself pointed out to the barbarous races that short portages join his tributary rivers to those of the Atlantic coast. At the other side, his mightiest arm interlocks with arms of the Oregon and the Colorado, and marshals highways to the Pacific. As from the remotest springs he bears many waters to the bosom of the ocean, the myriads of flags

that wave above them are the ensigns of one people. States larger than kingdoms flourish where he passes; and, beneath his step, cities start into being, more marvellous in their reality than the fabled creations of enchantment. His magnificent valley, lying in the best part of the temperate zone, salubrious and fertile, is the chosen muster-ground of the most various elements of human culture brought together by men, summoned from all the civilized nations of the earth and joined in the bonds of common citizenship by the attraction of republican freedom. Now that science has come to be the household friend of trade and commerce and travel, and that nature has lent to wealth and intellect the use of her constant forces, the hills, once walls of division, are scaled or pierced or levelled; and the two oceans, between which the republic has unassailably intrenched itself against the outward world, are bound together across the continent by friendly links of iron.

From the great destiny foretold by the possession of that river and the lands which it drains, the Bourbons of Spain, hoping to act in concert with Great Britain as well as France, would have shut out the United States even on its eastern side.

While the absolute monarch of the Spanish dominions and his minister thought to exclude the republic from the valley of the Mississippi, a power emerged from its forests to bring their puny policy to nought. An enterprise is now to be recorded which, for the valor of the actors, their fidelity to one another, the seeming feebleness of their means, and the great result of their hardihood, remains forever memorable in the history of the world. On the sixth of June 1776, the emigrants to the region west of the Louisa river, at a general meeting in Harrodston, elected George Rogers Clark, then midway in his twenty-fourth year, and one other, to represent them in the assembly of Virginia, with a request that their settlements might be constituted a county. Before they could cross the mountains, the legislature of Virginia had declared independence, established a government, and adjourned. In a later session they were not admitted to seats in the house; but on the sixth of December 1776 the westernmost part of the state was incorporated by the name of "the county of Kentucky."