[4th.] I returned to the office, and Mr. De Neuville soon after came there. I discussed with him the substance of his note, told him how exceedingly anxious the President was to accomplish an arrangement with Spain, but that if we gave up the boundary on one side, Spain must give up on the other. . . .

[9th.] . . . Mr. Onis came at the appointed hour of one, and delivered to me his projet of a treaty

11th.... The second article of Onis's projet contains the cession of the Floridas by the King of Spain to the United States, but describing the Floridas such as they were ceded by Great Britain in 1783, and with the limits by which they are designated in the treaty of limits and navigation concluded between Spain and the United States on the 27th of October, 1795. I struck out this passage, as being useless to define the cession, and as implying an admission that the part of West Florida of which we are already in possession was not included in the proposal ...

... Onis's ninth article confirms all grants of lands made before the 24th of January, 1818 that being the day when he made the first proposal for the cession of the Floridas — and declares all grants subsequent to that date null and void, the grantees not having fulfilled the conditions of the cession. I proposed to add that all prior grants should be valid only to the same extent that they would be to the King of Spain himself. It was agreed that I should urge for this addition.

The tenth article contains the mutual renunciations of claims of indemnity. . . .

The eleventh article annuls in part the Convention of August, 1802, and provides that the indemnities due to the citizens of the United States for spoliations shall be made from the proceeds of the public lands in Florida. . . .

I had drawn an additional article, to be the eleventh, providing for the examination and adjustment of all the claims by three Commissioners, citizens of the United States, to sit at Washington, and providing for the payment of the claims to the amount of five millions of dollars. . . .

[15th.] A more formidable objection was made by Mr. Onis to my third article, containing the boundary line westward of the Mississippi. After a long and violent struggle, he had agreed to take longitude one hundred, from the Red River to the Arkansas, and latitude fortytwo, from the source of the Arkansas to the South Sea. But he insisted upon having the middle of all the rivers for the boundary, and not, as I proposed, the western and southern banks . .

20th. Mr. Onis came this morning to my house, and told me that he must accept the treaty as now prepared, since we would have it so, though he still thought we ought to give up the limitation of the five millions, and the banks for the middle of the rivers as the boundaries. . .

[April 13, 1820.] . . . In the negotiation with Spain we had a just claim to the Mississippi and its waters, and our citizens had a fair though very precarious claim to indemnities. We had a mere color of claim to the Rio del Norte, no claim to a line beyond the Rocky Mountains, and none to Florida, which we very much wanted. The treaty gives us the Mississippi and all its waters gives us Florida — gives us an acknowledged line to the South Sea, and seventeen degrees of latitude upon its shores- gives our citizens five millions of dollars of indemnity and barely gives up to Spain the colorable claim from the Sabine to the Rio del Norte. . . .

John Quincy Adams, Memoirs (edited by Charles Francis Adams, Philadelphia, 1875), IV, 106–V, 69 passim.

144. Complaint of Arbitrary Government in a Dependency (1821)

BY COLONEL DON JOSEPH CALLAVA

(ANONYMOUS TRANSLATION)

Callava was governor of Florida, and was the Spanish commissary intrusted with delivering the territory to Andrew Jackson, the American commissary. Jackson, filled with the idea that Callava intended to carry off papers relating to a land title, proceeded in his usual precipitous fashion to prevent the fraud. He succeeded. He also made his own government very uncomfortable. This extract is from Callava's protest to the Spanish minister at Washington. - Bibliography: James Parton, Andrew Jackson, Ï, xiii-xiv, xviii, and II, 594-639; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 176.

ON

N the 17th day of July last, at 10 o'clock in the morning, I delivered West Florida, which was that day under my charge as governor, in which character he met me, to the commissary Don Andrew Jackson, in a public act held in the government house. There he received from me all the archives and documents registered . . .

The papers of the official correspondence belonging to the secretary's office remained in the charge of the secretary of my government; and the

military papers, judicial proceedings of the national finance, and arrivals, (arribadas finecidas,) belonging to their respective branches at the Havanna, to which they have been restored by the evacuation, remained with the secretary of war and finance, which office, Don Domingo Sousa had exercised for the space of fifteen or twenty years. There also remained. . . the artillery, with what belonged to that department, kept under my protection, during the delivery or removing of it, (which in either case had to be executed by me,) according to the determination which might be made by the President of the United States, and the minister plenipotentiary of H. C. Majesty, near that government . . . I have waited for that resolution, (which is yet pending ;) and the commissary Don Andrew Jackson, so understood me

The day previous to these transactions (the 21st of August) three · persons, dependants of Don Andrew Jackson, came to the house of the secretary Sousa, to be informed if he had in his possession some military testamentary dispositions, which they mentioned to him. Sousa told them, yes, and without reserve they were shewn to them, and he informed them that if they wished for any thing, they should ask me. All the papers which he had in his charge were closely examined: they declared that they would carry off those which they had pointed out to him, because they could not be in his possession as a private individual. Sousa told them that he was not a private individual, that he was an officer depending on my commission and authority, and that he could not give them without my order; and, finally, they went away, leaving the papers. . . .

The following day, (22d) in the morning, this officer met me in the street: he . . . told me that he had resolved to carry the boxes to my house, with all the papers which he had in his possession, and had delivered them to my steward . . .

At four in the afternoon of the same day . . . three persons presented themselves to me . . . telling me, from Don Andrew Jackson, that they came for the papers which Sousa had carried to my house, or to carry me with them to Jackson's house; because the Governor with his authority could not respect me in any other light than as a private individual.

Astonished to find myself involved in such events, with expressive actions I intreated them to do me the honor of returning to the Commissary Governor with my compliments, asking him, how he could forget that I was the Spanish Commissary who had delivered to him that

Province, and whom he had found as Governor in it, and who at the same time had not been removed by his government, nor concluded the delivery, nor withdrawn the artillery . . . nor of other things under my power? That I was surprized at what passed between us; that he would have the goodness to reflect that every paper in my possession on that day, belonged to the government which I had exercised in that province, was sacred under my authority and character, by the privilege of the law of nations, which has always been mutually observed and respected among nations, as to those individuals of either, to whom the execution of treaties has been entrusted, or other Commissioners, and it is a thing unknown that any authority has forcibly violated a trust so sacred, without cause or reason; that whatever paper he might wish to ask, he might demand of me in writing . . . that this was the only mode agreeable to the exact usual procedure in the important charge with which we were entrusted, in the political subject between nations, in the performance of which he could not, by his authority, call my proceedings in question, nor constrain them by judicial force as Governor, by which the security of the papers in my possession could be violated, nor any other thing directly depending not on my person, but on my official situation . . .

. . . An hour afterwards, one of the three presented himself in my house, and gave me an abstract, written on a half sheet of paper, in the English language, and signed Alcalde Brackenridge. I took it; I told him that I should have it translated, and should reply to it; he went away; I gave it to the interpreter at that hour, which was nine at night, and sought repose on the bed; but, a while after, and without further preliminaries, a party of troops, with the commissioners, assaulted the house, breaking the fence, (notwithstanding the door was open,) and the commissioners entered my apartment; they surrounded my bed with soldiers with drawn bayonets in their hands, they removed the mosquito net, they made me sit up, and demanded the papers, or they would use the arms against my person..

In fine, a short while after, one of the three went out, and returned, accompanied with an officer, who, placing himself before me, told me I was a prisoner, and ordered me to dress myself. . . . I dressed in my uniform, was going to put on my sword, but, upon reflection, thought it better to deliver it to the officer. I did so, and one of the three took it from his hand and threw it upon the chimney, and in this manner I was conducted through the streets among the troops.

They took me to a private house, in which they presented me to Don Andrew Jackson, who, with two other persons, was seated near a table; the house was filled with people of all ages and classes, and there he made me a sign to sit down, which I did.

By the only interpreter who had hitherto delivered and carried back the verbal messages, which I have already mentioned, he put one question to me, according to my recollection, confined solely to whether certain papers had been carried to my house by Don Domingo Sousa and delivered to my steward.

I requested him to permit me to answer in writing, and to do so with my own hand. He granted it readily. I set myself to write a regular protest, that I might go on to answer afterwards; but, I had hardly began, when Don Andrew Jackson took the paper from before me, and, with much violence and furious gestures, spoke for some time, looking at the by-standers, and, when he had concluded, the interpreter told me that he ordered me to give no other answer to all that he had asked me but yes or no. I replied, that I offered to be very brief, but that he should question me by writing the question, and permitting me to write the answer with my own hand, and give in my turn the most precise reason for it. He absolutely refused me, and the interpreter wrote upon that same paper which had been snatched from me, I know not what.

. . . Nothing was read to me, nor was I informed of any thing which the interpreter wrote in that act, nor was any signature required of me... I remained silent; they called my steward; they asked him if certain papers had been delivered to him by Sousa, at my house. He answered

yes. Don Andrew Jackson drew from among other papers one which was already written; he read it to me, and it contained the order for committing me and my steward to prison.

I got upon my feet. I begged the interpreter to ask him if he did not shudder and was not struck with horror at insulting me, and I pronounced a solemn protest against his proceedings. The interpreter informed him, and he replied, that for what he had done he had no account to give but to his government, and he told me that I might protest before God himself.

I was carried off to prison at twelve at night, and my steward also. . . afterwards, I was informed by various persons who understood the Spanish and English languages, that the matters above related, which had been conceived against me, and were not translated by the interpreter,