istrict and to designate a port of entry.

This cool appropriation of Spanish territory was too much for the
excitable Spanish Minister, Don Carlos Martinez Yrujo, who burst into
Madison's office one morning with a copy of the act in his hand and with
angry protests on his lips. He had been on excellent terms with Madison
and had enjoyed Jefferson's friendship and hospitality at Monticello;
but he was the accredited representative of His Catholic Majesty and
bound to defend his sovereignty. He fairly overwhelmed the timid Madison
with reproaches that could never be forgiven or forgotten; and from this
moment he was persona non grata in the Department of State.

Madison doubtless took Yrujo's reproaches more to heart just because
he felt himself in a false position. The Administration had allowed the
transfer of Louisiana to be made in the full knowledge that Laussat had
been instructed to claim Louisiana as far as the Rio Bravo on the
west but only as far as the Iberville on the east. Laussat had finally
admitted as much confidentially to the American commissioners. Yet
the Administration had not protested. And now it was acting on the
assumption that it might dispose of the Gulf littoral, the West Florida
coast, as it pleased. Madison was bound to admit in his heart of hearts
that Yrujo had reason to be angry. A few weeks later the President
relieved the tense situation, though at the price of an obvious evasion,
by issuing a proclamation which declared all the shores and waters
"lying _Within the Boundaries of The United States_" * to be a revenue
district with Fort Stoddert as the port of entry. But the mischief had
been done and no constructive interpretation of the act by the President
could efface the impression first made upon the mind of Yrujo. Congress
had meant to appropriate West Florida and the President had suffered the
bill to become law.

* The italics are President Jefferson's.

Nor was Pinckney's conduct at Madrid likely to make Monroe's mission
easier. Two years before, in 1802, he had negotiated a convention by
which Spain agreed to pay indemnity for depredations committed by her
cruisers in the late war between France and the United States. This
convention had been ratified somewhat tardily by the Senate and
now waited on the pleasure of the Spanish Government. Pinckney was
instructed to press for the ratification by Spain, which was taken for
granted; but he was explicitly warned to leave