" Letter from Fitzherbert to Grantham,
September 3, 1782.
Through England's unexpected action, then, the Bourbon cousins
had forever lost their opportunity to dominate the young but
spent and war-weakened Republic, or to use America as a catspaw
to snatch English commerce for France. It was plain, too, that
any frank move of the sort would range the English alongside of
their American kinsmen. Since American Independence was an
accomplished fact and therefore could no longer be prevented, the
present object of the Bourbon cousins was to restrict it. The
Appalachian Mountains should be the western limits of the new
nation. Therefore the settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee must
be broken up, or the settlers must be induced to secede from the
Union and raise the Spanish banner. The latter alternative was
held to be preferable. To bring it about the same methods were to
be continued which had been used prior to and during the
war--namely, the use of agents provocateurs to corrupt the
ignorant and incite the lawless, the instigation of Indian
massacres to daunt the brave, and the distribution of gold to buy
the avaricious.
As her final and supreme means of coercion, Spain refused to
America the right of navigation on the Mississippi and so
deprived the Westerners of a market for their produce.
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