certain proceedings of General Andrew Jackson, while governor of Florida, which were contained in a letter to this Department from Don Hilario de Rivas y Salmon before your arrival in this country, and in your letters of the 18th and 22d of November, would be given, after the substance of those complaints should have been made known to General Jackson, and his explanations of the motives and considerations by which he had been governed in adopting the measures complained of should have been received.

In performing this province I am commanded by the President of the United States to repeat the assurance of his deep regret, that the transactions which formed the subject of those complaints should ever have occurred, and his full conviction, upon a review of all the circumstances which have attended them, that they are attributable entirely to the misconduct of the Governor and Captain General of Cuba, and of the subordinate officers of Spain, in evading and refusing the fulfilment of the most express and positive stipulations of the treaty, both of evacuating the province within six months from the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty, and of delivering the archives and documents relating directly to the property and sovereignty of the provinces.

At the time of the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty your predecessor, General Vivés, delivered an order from his Catholic Majesty to the Captain General and Governor of the island of Cuba, and of the Floridas, informing him of the cession to the United States of that part of the provinces of which he was the governor, that was situated on this continent, and instructing him as follows:

I command you and ordain, that after the information which shall be seasonably given you by my minister plenipotentiary and

envoy extraordinary at Washington of the ratifications having been exchanged, you proceed on your part to make the proper dispositions, in order that, at the end of six months, counting from the date of the exchange of the ratifications, or sooner, if possible, the Spanish officers and troops may evacuate the territories of both Floridas, and that possession of them be given to the officers or commissioners of the United States, duly authorized to receive them. . . . You shall arrange in proper time the delivery of the islands adjacent and dependent upon the two Floridas, and the public lots and squares, vacant lands, public edifices, fortifications, barracks, and other buildings, which are not private property; as also the archives and documents which relate directly to the property and sovereignty of the same two provinces, by placing them at the disposal of the commissaries or officers of the United States, duly authorized to receive them.

This order, thus clear and explicit, was dispatched, together with letters from General Vivés to the Governor of Cuba and the Floridas, notifying him of the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty, by Col. James G. Forbes, who was commissioned "as agent and commissary of the United States to deliver to him the royal order, to arrange and concert with him, conformably to instructions committed therewith, the execution of the above stipulations, and to receive from the said governor, and from any and every person possessed of the said archives and documents, all and every one of the same, and to dispose thereof in the manner prescribed by his instructions." Col. Forbes' authority thus was to receive the documents and archives, and to concert and arrange with the governor of the Floridas, the delivery of those provinces, which General Jackson was commissioned to receive, take possession of and occupy; and of which he was further commissioned to be the governor, when surrendered to the United States.

The royal order was delivered by Col. Forbes to the governor of the Floridas at the Havanna on the 23d of April, 1821. There has been shown by that governor no cause or reason which could justly have required him to delay the delivery of the documents and archives, and the arrangements for the delivery of the provinces, beyond the term of a single week. There were twenty boxes of those archives and documents, the whole, or with very few exceptions the whole of which ought, by the positive stipulation of the treaty, and by the express order of the King of Spain, to have been immediately delivered to Col. Forbes. Not one of them was delivered to him; nor has one of them been delivered to this day.

[On the most frivolous pretences] 1 the orders for the surrender of the provinces were delayed from day to day, notwithstanding the urgent and continual solicitations of Col. Forbes, for the term of six weeks; at the end of which, to avoid further indefinite procrastination, he was compelled to depart without receiving the archives and documents, but with repeated promises of the governor that they should be transmitted to this government, promises which have remained to this day unperformed.

The orders for the delivery of the provinces themselves were not only thus unreasonably withheld, but when made out, though not furnished to Col. Forbes till the last week in May, were made to bear date on the fifth of that month: nor were they prepared conformably to the stipulation of the treaty, or to the royal order of his Catholic Majesty. For instead of directing the surrender to be made to the commissioners or officers of the United States, duly authorized to receive them, the instruction to the commanders in East and West Florida was to deliver those respective provinces to

1 Words in brackets were struck out.

Col. Forbes himself, who had from the United States no authority to receive them. And although expressly advised by Col. Forbes with the request that the orders of delivery might be amended and made conformable to the treaty, and to the royal command, Governor Maby did not so amend it, but reduced Col. Forbes to the alternative of submitting to further [prevaricating]1 delays, or of departing with an imperfect and ambiguous order of delivery of West Florida, authorizing its surrender to the legally constituted authorities of the United States (that is, as Governor Maby well knew, to General Andrew Jackson) only, in case of any accident happening to Col. Forbes, whom he still affected to consider, notwithstanding his own express declaration to the contrary, as the commissioned agent of the United States to that effect.

The twenty boxes of documents and archives, which were at the Havanna, as has been mentioned, had been transmitted thither from Pensacola, and contained all the most important records of property in West Florida. The possession of them was in the highest degree important to the United States; not only as the vouchers of individual property, but as protecting guards against the imposture of fraudulent grants. [The longer they were withheld the stronger continuance must be given to the suspicions which their intention could not but occasion that it was with improper views. It is known that the governors and captains general of Cuba and of the Floridas have exercised the power of granting lands in those provinces; and there is more than conjecture for the belief that to the injury of withholding those documents has been added the still more exceptionable act of intruding among them grants made since the delivery of the provinces to the United States, and antedated to give

1 Words in brackets were struck out.

them a semblance of validity. The delicacy due to the character of an officer of distinguished rank would forbid the imputation to him of motives so dishonorable, were it possible to ascribe his conduct in this wanton violation of the rights of the United States, of the obligations of Spain, and of the commands of his sovereign, to more justifiable purposes.] But the same persevering system of withholding documents which it was their duty to deliver, has marked, I am deeply concerned to say, the conduct of both the commanders of East and West Florida, who were charged respectively to deliver those provinces to the United States.

1

It is to this cause, and to this alone, as appears from a review of all the transactions of which you have complained, that must be traced the origin of all those severe measures which General Jackson himself was the first, while deeming them indispensable to the discharge of his own official duties, to lament. Charged as he was with the trust of receiving the provinces in behalf of the United States, of maintaining their rights of property within them, of guarding them to the utmost of his power from those frauds, to which there was too much reason to apprehend they would be liable, and to which the retention of the documents gave so great and dangerous scope; entrusted from the necessity of the case, during the interval of time while the general laws of the United States remained unextended to the provinces, with the various powers which had until that time been exercised by the Spanish governors, and which included the administration of justice between individuals, it was impossible that he should not feel [with all the ardor of a soul devoted above all other things to the fulfilment of his duties,] 2 the necessity of exercising, under circumstances thus exas

1 What is in brackets was struck out.

2 Words in brackets were struck out.