for some time in Spain, and he carried to Paris not only a keen contempt
for the Spanish people and Spanish politics, but a strong suspicion that
Spain was using her influence to keep the United States from getting the
territory between the Lakes and the Ohio. France soon fell under similar
suspicion, for she was under obligations, as everyone knew, to satisfy
Spain; and little time elapsed before the penetrating American diplomat
was semiofficially assured that his suspicions in both directions were
well founded.

The mainspring of Spanish policy was the desire to make the Gulf of
Mexico a closed sea, under exclusive Spanish control. This plan would be
frustrated if the Americans acquired an outlet on the Gulf; furthermore,
it would be jeopardized if they retained control on the upper
Mississippi. Hence, the States must be kept back from the great
river; safety dictated that they be confined to the region east of the
Appalachians.

An ingenious plan was thereupon developed. Spain was to resume
possession of the Floridas, insuring thereby the coveted unbroken
coast line on the Gulf. The vast area between the Mississippi and the
Appalachians and south of the Ohio was to be an Indian territory, half
under Spanish and half under American "protection." The entire region
north of the Ohio was to be kept by Great Britain, or, at the most,
divided--on lines to be determined--between Great Britain and the United
States. From Rayneval, confidential secretary of the French foreign
minister Vergennes, Jay learned that the French Government proposed to
give this scheme its support.

Had such terms as these been forced on the new nation, the hundreds of
Virginian and Pennsylvanian pioneers who had given up their lives in the
planting of American civilization in the back country would have
turned in their graves. But Jay had no notion of allowing the scheme to
succeed. He sent an emissary to England to counteract the Spanish and
French influence. He converted Adams to his way of thinking, and even
raised doubts in Franklin's mind. Finally he induced his colleagues to
cast their instructions to the winds and negotiate a treaty with the
mother country independently.

This simplified matters immensely. Great Britain was a beaten nation,
and from the beginning her commissioners played a losing game. There
was much haggling over the loyalists, the fisheries, debts; but the
boundaries were quickly drawn. Great Britain preferred to se