which Louisiana could rely. By this time the
Spaniards and English realized that, instead of showing hostility to one
another, it behooved them to unite against the common foe; and their
agents in Canada and Louisiana were beginning to come to an
understanding. In another letter Carondelet explained that the system
adopted by Lord Dorchester and the English officials in Canada in
dealing with the savages was the same as that which he had employed,
both the Spaniards and the British having found them the most powerful
means with which to oppose the American advance. By the expenditure of a
few thousand dollars, wrote the Spanish Governor, [Footnote: Draper
Collection, Spanish MSS. State Documents. Baron de Carondelet to Manuel
Gayrso de Lemos, Aug. 20, 1794; Carondelet to Duke Alcudia, Sept. 25,
1795; Carondelet's Letter of July 9, 1795; Carondelet's Letter of Sept.
27, 1793. These Spanish documents form a very important part of the
manuscripts in the Library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
I was able to get translations of them through the great courtesy of Mr.
Reuben Gold Thwaites, the Secretary of the Society, to whom I must again
render my acknowledgments for the generosity with which he has helped
me.] he could always rouse the southern tribes to harry the settlers,
while at the same time covering his deeds so effectually that the
Americans could not point to any specific act of which to complain.

Spanish Fear of the Americans.

There was much turbulence and some treachery exhibited by individual
frontiersmen in their dealings with Spain, and the Americans of the
Mississippi valley showed a strong tendency to win their way to the
mouth of the river and to win the right to settle on its banks by sheer
force of arms; but the American Government and its authorized
representatives behaved with a straightforward and honorable good faith
which offered a striking contrast to the systematic and deliberate
duplicity and treachery of the Spanish Crown and the Spanish Governors.
In truth, the Spaniards were the weakest, and were driven to use the pet
weapons of weakness in opposing their stalwart and masterful foes. They
were fighting against their doom, and they knew it. Already they had
begun to fear, not only for Louisiana and Florida, but even for sultry
Mexico and far-away golden California. It was hard, wrote one of the
ablest of the Spanish Governors, to gather forces enough to ward off
attacks from