Brooks: Diplomacy and the Borderilds 135

Adams had proposed that all grants made by the Spanish king
subsequent to August 11, 1802, be declared invalid, those of earlier
date to be maintained.
 Before Pizarro could comment on Adams' proposal, however,
he learned that Ferdinand had issued to three favorites, the Duke
of Alag6n, the Count of Pufionrostro, and Pedro de Vargas, grants
embracing almost all the unoccupied lands in the FloridasI Such
a procedure, if upheld, would seriously jeopardize the agreement
to a treaty by disrupting the plans of Adams for the sale of the
lands. Erving learned that the grants had been made and accord-
ingly warned Adams in February. Later he transmitted copies of
the grants. A despatch sent in September indicated that the Pu-
fionrostro grant had been made as early as mid-December of the
preceding year.'
 Erving had taken up the matter with Pizarro, and "brought him
to consent that these grants might be cancelled." Erving reported
that Pizarro "said enough to convince me that there will be no diffi-
culty on this head."' But Pizarro did not and could not promise
any satisfaction; nor could he be certain, as he suggested, that the
grants would be withdrawn and the favorites recompensed with
land in other parts of New Spain. Pizarro had himself been duped,
as we know from the words of his aide, Heredia. The latter declared
that the grants were made without the knowledge of the foreign
office, and that, although Pizarro protested against them with de-
termination before the Consejo, he had slight success.' An order
was issued, indeed, that the grantees should not sell any of their
land for the present, but that did not eliminate the difficulty."
 In his note to Onis on April 25, Pizarro showed that he was wor-
 ried by this complication. He could offer no solution; but in com-
 menting upon Adams' proposal that 1802 be the determining date
 he said that that concession might be made. Pizarro certainly
 would rather have given up these grants specifically than yield
 further on the western boundary. It does not appear that he gave
 Onis the dates of the grants-he may not even have known them I
 Pizarro concluded this important despatch by warning Onis not
to let the Floridas go without providing a definite settlement of
limits on the west. He advanced at this time the first step in that
delineation as finally embodied in the treaty. If it were absolutely
necessary, in order to avoid a break in the negotiations or recogni-