Brooks: Diplomacy and the Borderlands 65

 Monroe wrote on May 30, 1816, empowering Erving to make a
settlement with Spain, and stating that he should propose an
arrangement on the same bases as those offered in 1805, with an
important possible concession on the Louisiana-Texas frontier."
He was to ask that Spain cede territory east of the Mississippi, and
accept the claims-settlement procedure as given in the Convention
of 1802. Finally, he was to suggest that the United States should
relinquish its rights to indemnification for the spoliations by
French cruisers, and for damages caused by the suppression of the
right of deposit at New Orleans.
 With respect to territorial delineation, Monroe outlined again
the plan for a line up the Colorado River to its source, running
thence to the northern limits of Louisiana and embracing all the
tributaries of the Mississippi. But he said, in addition:
The President... i willing, should it be indispensably neceMary, to establish
the Sabine, from its mouth to its souree, a the boundary, in that extent, be-
tween the United-State. and the Spanish-Provinces; leaving the residue of
their boundaries, to be settled by Commissarie to be hereafter appointed by
both governments.

 Monroe went on to explain the plan of the administration where-
 by the United States was to depend on the sale of lands in the
 Floridas for the financingppf the payments to be made to its own
 citizens for claim. He carefully instructed Erving to make cer-
 tain that no Spanish grants there should be valid after an agreed
 date, thus assuring the government possession of sufficient prop-
 erty for sale purposes. That this caution was sound became all too
 evident three years later.
 Further advice showed that Monroe was not unmindful of the
 western land claims, but that he considered them less vital than
 they later became:

 Beyond the conditions above stated you will not go. They are to be your ulti-
 mat. I need not remark, that it will be your duty, to obtain as mueh better a
 you may be able, rather seeking however an indemnity for qpoliatioa and
 other wrongs, in money from Spain, to be paid directly by her, than in an ex-
 tenson of the Western Boundary beyond the Sabine, though that is to be
 obtained, if practicable.,
 In leaving the Boundary from the souree of the Sabine, West and North, to
 be settled by Commiearies, any adjustment there will be avoided, whieh might
 affet our claims on [the] Columbia Biver, and on the Pacifie.