The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 10, July 1906 - April, 1907 Page: 50

Texas Historical Association Quarterly.

Carondelet stated that the province extended above the fiftieth
degree of north latitude and that Spain should protest against the
Indian commerce carried on by the English and Americans between
that line and the forty-fourth parallel. For the present, however,
Spain should concentrate her efforts upon the country south of the
St. Peters (Minnesota) so as to keep the Americans from pressing
westward to the Missouri or beyond. This policy should be adopted
at once, and 'as 'a first step he had already authorized the explora-
tion of the Missouri1 in order to determine if the report that it
rose near the western ocean was true. In case it did, it would be
doubly advisable to shield it from American aggression.
Carondelet showed that at the time of the cession of the province
by France it was almhnost valueless. Both the French and English
as neighbors had been more interested in petty contraband trade
than in important territorial acquisitions, but the case was far dif-
ferent with the restless pioneer population then demanding the
free navigation of the Mississippi. That privilege once granted,
they could no longer be restricted to their side of the Mississippi,
but would inevitably press on to seize the rich fur trade of the
Missouri or the mines of the interior of Mexico. After mentioning
the rapid growth -of the American settlements and the danger to
Spain's population from their proximity, he proposed a definite
plan for the defense of his province, in accordance with which he
later reported an expenditure of nearly $300,000.2 He likewise
attempted, but without success, to revive among 'the Kentucky
conspirators of 1788 the prospect of separating Kentucky from
the Union.a
V. NOLAN AND THE AMERICAN PIONEERS.
By the close of 1794 experience had shown that diplomatic in-
trigues in London or Paris, although aided by Canadian officials
and by Creole or American adventurers, were powerless to revolu-
"The expedition under James Mackay. See map accompanying Perrin
Du Lac's Voyage dans les Deux Louisianes. Paris, 1805. The Mis-
souri Historical 'Society possesses some transcripts of the documents in
the Spanish archives relating to the explorations of Mackay, but I have
been unable to make use of them in preparing this article.
2American Historical Review, III 514, note 3.
8Green, The Spanish Conspiracy, 324.