Brooks: Diplomacy and the Borderlads


 Onis replied to this note with a characteristically pompous flour-
ish. After berating Adams for what he considered the latter's im-
patience in declining to discuss the history of the boundary claims,
he burst out with the declaration:
Truth is of all times; and reason and justice are founded on immutable
principles. It is on these principles that the rights of the Crown of Spain are
founded to the territories eastward and westward of Louisiana, claimed by
your Government as making part of that province. ... There does not appear
to be a single incident to give the smallest support to the pretensions of your
Government."
The Spanish minister went on to object to Adams' apparent dis-
regard of the spoliations on Spanish commerce, and to the inclu-
sion of the French spoliations with those of the Spanish on United
States shipping. He also opposed the date of 1802 as the last for
valid land grants, pointing out that Spain had full sovereignty
and right of land dispensation long after that time.
 One other sentence in this note is of interest in view of the later
 dispute over the names of the Texas rivers. Onis said:
 I presume it is the river Colorado of Natehitoches [the Bed, or Bozo] you
 speak of, and not of another bearing the same name, and which is still farther
 within the limits of the Spanish provinces.

 From a despatch which he sent home four days later, before any
 further discussion with Adams, it would appear that this "pre-
 sumption" was merely a suggestion thrown out to indicate the com-
 pleteness of Spain's belief in her title to Texas, and that, truthfully,
 Onis had no such presumption at all. He explained to Pizarro the
 extent of Adams' claims by lamenting:
 Of Spain is asked the session of the Florida, and of the province of Texa
 up to the Bay of San Bernardo into which sows the river of San Saba, which
 in the maps of this country is known as the Bio Colorado del Norte, and it is
 proposed by way of generosity that we conserve the short space of that prov-
 ince between the Bay of San Bernardo and the Mio Brabo or del Norte, which
 they have also talked of taking away from us. Such is, your eacelleney, the
 idea which has been formed here of our weakness, on seeing that we have not
 managed in six months to eject a band of adventurers from Amelia island.

 Further evidence that Onis must have known perfectly* well
 what was meant appears in Adams' next rejoinder. He named over
 the long sequence of incidents on which the United States based its
 Texas claim, including the expedition of La Salle which gave rise