134 UnsierSity of CaOiforia Pblications in History

western boundary unsettled, and providing no assurance against
further United States aid to the insurgents. Pizarro suggested
enlarging such an agreement if possible to include a promise of
nonrecognition. He further explained:
I know that my instructions are very mited.... I have had to bind myself
by the deliberations of the Councils of State, whatever my intimate experience
of affairs indicates, a [is proved by the fact that] you will have seen in my
memoir [the Bsposioi&s of June, 1817] other means for reaching the great
object... You and I see this affair alike. We see that we must yield as a last
resort, but it is not possible to give you more latitude than that stated.
 The additional means suggested in those portions of the Expo-
 sicins which Pizarro mentioned had to do chiefly with compro-
 mises in the matter of the western boundary.' So far, Pizarro had
 been unable to obtain approval of any concessions on the original
 demand of Cevallos that the limit be the Mississippi
 Significant extensions of Spanish policy were made necessary
 by the failure of the British mediation scheme. Pizarro wrote on
 April 25, 1818, that in order to avoid the dangers so greatly feared
 and to provide a permanent settlement of the western boundary
 Onis should offer the cession of the Floridas and the mutual can-
 cellation of all claims for indemnification. In addition, he was to
 suggest a line drawn up either the Calcasieu River or the Mer-
 mento, then between Natchitoches and Los Adaes, straight north
 across the Red River and the Arkansas to the Missouri, up that
 stream to its source, and from there directly north.' The United
 States was to promise not to recognize or to aid the insurgents, and
 in return would receive most-favored-nation privileges in the ports
 of the colonies when they were pacified.
 In this letter Pizarro took up the most notorious, though not the
most important, phase of the entire situation. This was the appar-
ent scheme of the Spanish court favorites to deflect the intended
course of the arrangements regarding land grants in Florida. The
concentration of the sparse population of the Floridas into a few
towns has been indicated in an earlier chapter. It had long been
understood that the plan of the United States government on tak-
ing over the provinces would be to sell what land was usable and
unclaimed in the unoccupied areas, using the profits to meet the
cost of claims settlements. Obviously in a treaty of cession a clear
statement on the legal status of private lands must be made, and