Brooks: Diplomacy and the Borderlands


ish moved down the river, some officers were sent to Galveston
Island, where they found the refugees barely surviving through
the generosity of Laftte. Thus was the French menace in Texas
completely removed.
 President Monroe, at the instance of the French and Spanish
ministers, had sent an investigator, George Graham, to Galveston.
Graham left Washington in June, 1818, and returned four months
later, with the report that he had found the French refugees at
Lafitte's island and that their threatening enterprise had been com-
pletely foiled.
 No sooner had the Bonapartist adventure come to an end than a
crisis arose in another border episode, causing complaints against
the United States to be sent to France from Madrid. This was the
invasion of the Floridas by Jackson. Appeals by Spain to England
and Russia regarding actions of the United States at Amelia Island
and on the Apalachicola have already been discussed. There only
remains here to note what response France gave to Spain's appeals.
 Spain's most urgent protest was in the form of a circular letter
 addressed by Onfs to the various foreign ministers in Washington,
 July 7, 1818." Hyde de Neuville's reply to that note was a refusal
 to write to Adams in support of OCis' complaints. His grounds
 were that, although he did not wish to condone an outrage, his
 major purpose was to work for peace between the two countries,
 and not to further irritating exchanges of demands. Although
 Hyde de Neuville did not, accordingly, officially support Onls'
 protests, he was active in the negotiation from that time until its
 conclusion.
 The French minister's activity derived from the pleas of Spain
 to France, not for mediation, but for diplomatic assistance. Nearly
 a year before, in pursuance of the policy determined upon by the
 Consejo de Estado at Madrid after the reading of Pizarro's Ez-
 posidon, Ambassador Fernfn Nfiez had written two notes to
 Richelieu." The first was largely a restatement of the five major
 points of contention with the United States, and a complaint at
 the injustice of the United States' demands. The second explained
 Spain's claims on France.
 Fernfn Ndfiez in the second note enclosed a copy of Pizarro's
 project, which had been presented to Erving on August 17. He asked
 in connection with it the following actions by France: a declara-