The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 10, July 1906 - April, 1907 Page: 45

The Louisiana-Texas Frontier.

a colony on the site of modern Vicksburg.1 The agent attempted
to allay the fears of Governor Mir6 by representing the colony as
a, migration from the United States of disaffected western ele-
ments, with the design of effecting an alliance with adjoining
Spanish colonies and -of serving as a rampart to protect them
against similar future invasions. It was rumored that George
Rogers Clark was 'to command the battalion O'Fallon was organiz-
ing. Spanish opposition and the proclamation of Washington
against occupying Indian lands served to break up this particular
movement, but not the design of its leaders to expatriate them-
selves, if that were necessary to gain the freedom of the Missis-
sippi.
In the midst of the crisis threatening from the Nootka Sound
affair Jefferson had attempted to gain the aid of France in secur-
ing New Orleans, or at least a port near the mouth of the Missis-
sippi.2 France, however, had plans of her own, and while Spain
was threatened by England, offered to form a new alliance in lieu
of the former family compact." The new tie was to be strength-
ened by the retrocession of Louisiana. Spain preferred peace with
England rather than alliance with revolutionary France, especially
upon such terms. The latter power, then, must employ some other
method to gain the coveted Louisiana.
With the adoption of the Girondist revolutionary propaganda
of 1792, France opened the second period of Louisiana intrigue
with some prospect of realizing her dream of colonial dominion.
Under the dominating influence of Brissot de Warville, the former
American traveler who had correctly interpreted the situation in
the Mississippi Valley, the attention of the French leaders was
largely directed to the Spanish colonies upon this continent. To
strengthen this tendency, the tireless Miranda soon spread before
Lebrun, the minister of foreign affairs, and his associates, his-
scheme of widespread Spanish-American revolution, now to be
undertaken under French auspices. Wiser measures, however, soon
moderated this spirit of universal revolutionary propaganda. The
projected attack upon all Spanish America was regarded as too.
chimerical, for although the country would not forever remain
'American Historical Review, III 652, 653.
"Ibid., X 258.
-Ibid., X 258, 259.