Florida, which Spain had lately conquered, or for Oran or
Guadaloupe. Failing in this, he adopted a plan for satisfying Spain at
the expense of the United States; and he did this the more willingly as
he had no love for the Americans, and did not wish to see them become
too powerful. France had strictly kept her pledges; she had given us
valuable and timely aid in gaining our independence; and the sympathies
of the French people were entirely with the American cause. But the
object of the French government had been simply to humiliate England,
and this end was sufficiently accomplished by depriving her of her
thirteen colonies.

[Sidenote: The valley of the Mississippi; Aranda's prophecy.]

The immense territory extending from the Alleghany Mountains to the
Mississippi River, and from the border of "West Florida to the Great
Lakes, had passed from the hands of France into those of England at the
peace of 1763; and by the Quebec Act of 1774 England had declared the
southern boundary of Canada to be the Ohio River. At present the whole
territory, from Lake Superior down to the southern boundary of what is
now Kentucky, belonged to the state of Virginia, whose backwoodsmen had
conquered it from England in 1779. In December, 1780, Virginia had
provisionally ceded the portion north of the Ohio to the United States,
but the cession was not yet completed. The region which is now Tennessee
belonged to North Carolina, which had begun to make settlements there as
long ago as 1758. The trackless forests included between Tennessee and
West Florida were still in the hands of wild tribes of Cherokees and
Choctaws, Chickasaws and Creeks. Several thousand pioneers from North
Carolina and Virginia had already settled beyond the mountains, and the
white population was rapidly increasing. This territory the French
government was very unwilling to leave in American hands. The
possibility of enormous expansion which it would afford to the new
nation was distinctly foreseen by sagacious men. Count Aranda, the
representative of Spain in these negotiations, wrote a letter to his
king just after the treaty was concluded, in which he uttered this
notable prophecy: "This federal republic is born a pygmy. A day will
come when it will be a giant, even a colossus, formidable in these
countries. Liberty of conscience, the facility for establishing a new
population on immense lands, as well as the advantages of the new
government, will draw thither