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Relations with Great Britain, 1815-18.

Commercial convention,

1815.

Treaty of
1818.
Winsor's
America,
VII, 489.

gress for the improvement of harbors, but the matter did not assume important proportions until after the close of Monroe's second term.

The

255. Relations with Great Britain, 1815-18. Treaty of Ghent had ended the war with Great Britain, but it had left many important questions to be decided by future negotiations. These were at once begun. The British government, although not in precisely a conciliatory frame of mind, was more reasonable than it had ever been before. In 1815 it consented to a commercial convention which opened a portion of the British West India trade to American vessels; the convention also contained an important provision designed to secure the abolition of discriminating duties and charges in either country against the vessels and goods of the other. This arrangement was limited to four years, but was extended for ten years longer in 1818. In the latter year an important treaty was negotiated in regard to the fisheries and the northern boundary of the United States. With regard to the fisheries, the United States consented to give up some of its rights under the treaty of 1783; Great Britain, on her part, recognized the remainder as being permanent in character; she also gave up her rights to the navigation of the Mississippi. The northern boundary was to follow the forty-ninth parallel from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky or Stony Mountains, as they were then termed. The United States in this way abandoned a small portion of Louisiana and acquired a valuable bit of territory in the basin of the Red River of the North. (Map No. IV.) As to Oregon, or the region lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific, north of the Spanish possessions in California, no agreement as to division could be reached. It was arranged, therefore, that both Great Britain and the United States should occupy it jointly for ten years.

An attempt was also made to come to some conclusion in regard to the suppression of the African slave trade; but agreement was impossible, owing to the divergent ideas of

1818]

Relations with Spain

353

the two governments as to the "right of search," since the United States refused to permit British men-of-war to stop and search vessels flying the American flag.

1810-19.

543.

256. Relations with Spain, 1810-19. It will be remem- Relations bered that the desire of the United States to acquire West with Spain, Florida and New Orleans had brought about the Louisiana Winsor's Purchase, which Spain had steadily maintained did not America, VII, 497. include West Florida (p. 318). In 1810 and 1812 the United States had seized a portion of that province, but had left the remainder and East Florida in the hands of Spain. This matter gave rise to constant irritation; Spain refused to recognize the title of the United States to West Florida or to sell East Florida. The American government, on its part, held fast to the territory it had seized and endeavored to buy the eastern province. East Florida was of slight value to Spain, and the Spanish government was so beset with difficulties in Europe and America (p. 355) that it could not properly govern any of its American possessions. East Florida was used by all sorts of fugitives from the United States, white, black, and red. It was also a convenient base for the organization of smuggling expeditions into the United States. The situation was especially grave as to the Indians, for whenever those in Georgia and Alabama rebelled, they fled across the frontier to Florida and received shelter and assistance from its inhabitants. In 1818 Jackson General Jackson pursued a body of maurauding Seminoles invades across the boundary. Finding that they were aided by the Spanish settlers at St. Marks and Pensacola, he seized those Schouler's two places. While in Florida he also executed two British subjects, Arbuthnot and Ambrister, who appeared to be intriguing with the natives against the United States.

Jackson's raid aroused discussion in the cabinet: John Quincy Adams, Monroe's Secretary of State, defended it; all the other members of the administration disapproved it; one of them, John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, proposed that Jackson should be tried by a court-martial for insubordination, but nothing was done.

Florida, 1818.

United

States, III,

57-93.

Purchase of

Winsor's

America,

257. The Florida Treaty, 1819.-Negotiations had been Florida, 1819. in progress for some time for the purchase of East Florida, or, as we may now call it, Florida, and the settlement of all existing disputes with Spain. The negotiations were brought to a conclusion by a treaty which was signed at Washington (1819) and was ratified in 1821. By this instrument, Spain ceded Florida to the United States and

VII, 499.

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The line of

1819.

The United States, 1819

abandoned all claim to lands lying east and north of the following line beginning at the mouth of the Sabine River, this line followed that stream to the 32d degree of latitude, thence due north to the Red River, and along that river to the one hundredth meridian; from that point the line ran due north to the Arkansas River, and followed the channel of that stream to its source, thence northward or southward, as the case might be, to the forty-second parallel and along that line to the Pacific Ocean. The United States abandoned its claim to lands south and west of this line and agreed to

1819]

The Florida Treaty

355 pay five million dollars to American citizens who had claims against Spain for property which had been wrongfully seized. The effect of this settlement was that the United States acquired Florida and gave up Texas. The letters which were written by John Quincy Adams during this long negotiation are of great importance in diplomatic history. Singularly enough, it was reserved for his grandson, Henry Adams, to prove conclusively that the United States had a perfect title to Texas.

1821.

The Florida treaty was signed on February 22, 1819, and Ratification of the treaty, was ratified by the Senate without opposition or delay. Spain, however, postponed ratification for nearly two years. At last, in 1821, the agreement was completed. Jackson was appointed governor of the new territory of Florida, which was admitted to the Union as a state in 1845. Those portions of the old province of West Florida which were seized in 1810 and 1812 were added to the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, giving the two latter access to the Gulf of Mexico.

258. The Spanish-American Colonies, 1808-22.-The Spanish-American colonies in South and Central America and Mexico had originally thrown off their allegiance to the Spanish monarch when Napoleon thrust his brother on the Spanish throne (1808), but on the restoration of the old monarchy they had returned to their obedience to the sovereign of Spain. In the interval they had enjoyed freedom of trade with other nations. Spain again imposed the old colonial system; her colonists again rebelled (1816), and the government of the mother land was too weak to compel submission. The ten years following the final downfall of Napoleon in 1815 were a period of great unrest among the nations of Europe. In 1820 the Spaniards themselves rebelled against their restored monarch. Under these circumstances the Spanish colonists were able to maintain their independence, and by 1822 revolutionary governments had been established in every Spanish colony on the American continents.

Rebellions in the Spanish colonies,

1808-22.

Schouler's
United

States, III, 25-36.

The Holy Alliance. Schouler's United States, III,

277.

The elements of revolutionary unrest in Europe had caused the European monarchs to form a "concert" termed the "Holy Alliance," to do "each other reciprocal services," or, in plain language, to maintain one another's rights and privileges. Great Britain was not a member of this league, but many leading Englishmen undoubtedly sympathized with the reactionary tendencies of its framers. In 1823 France, in the name of the "Holy Alliance," restored the Spanish king to his throne. He eagerly besought his fellow-monarchs to complete their work by restoring his authority in the rebellious American colonies. The apprehension that something of the kind might be attempted, aroused the commercial animosities of English merchants, who had established a profitable trade with the revolted states and had no wish to see the SpanishCanning's American ports again closed to British vessels. Putting proposition. aside for the moment his overbearing manner, Canning, the British foreign minister, courteously addressed the States, III, . American envoy at London, Mr. Richard Rush, and pro284. posed that Great Britain and the United States should make a concurrent declaration against the course which the Holy Alliance seemed about to take (1823).

Schouler's

United

Independ

ence of the Spanish colonies

recognized, 1822. Schouler's United

States, III, 255.

Russians on the north

west coast.

The insurrectionary movements in the Spanish-American colonies had awakened the pity of the citizens of the United States. They sympathized with republican movements in general, they were interested in the trade of Spanish America, and they especially disliked the idea of European nations interfering in American affairs. Monroe and Adams, both experienced diplomatists, carefully observed the restrictions imposed on neutrals by international practice. By 1822, however, they thought that the time. had come to recognize the independence of the colonies. This was accomplished by the appropriation of money to defray the expenses of diplomatic missions to "the independent nations on the American continent.”

Meantime, another Russia had obtained a foot

259. The Monroe Doctrine, 1823. – cause for anxiety had arisen.

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