Brooks: Diplomacy and the Borderlands 147

tinue his negotiations, through some foreign minister if need be.
It is interesting to note that, as on several previous occasions, in
this last suggestion Onis was being directed to do what he had
already begun on his own initiative before the instructions arrived.
The instructions did not enable him to continue negotiations much
farther, however, because they did not authorize him to draw the
boundary to the Pacific Coast."
 On the basis of those instructions, Onis submitted a counterplan
to Adams on November 16. Concealing his authority to yield on the
Texas limit, Onfs proposed a boundary along the Sabine, thence
across the Red to the Missouri, and up that river to its source.
From there it was to be left to a boundary commission." As before,
he insisted on restitution of the Floridas, making that contingent
to a cession. Furthermore, he now suggested for the first time that
January 24, 1818 (the date on which he had written Adams defi-
nitely announcing Ferdinand's decision to cede the Floridas), be
established as the deadline for the validity of the land grants. That
date was to be the crux of bitter controversy four months later.
 Unless Onis had some secret instructions which are not now
available in the public archives, there is apparent no intent on his
part to deceive in the matter of the land grants. In reporting his
latest offer to Pizarro he implied that he meant to exclude the then
recent large grants:
I have overcome the point of the grants made by His Majesty in the Floridan
... declaring that I will agree that the grants made by the authorities of His
Majesty since the twenty-fourth of January last be considered annulled, [that
being] the day in which I stated the will of His Majesty to cede to this Be-
publie the Floridan, not because His Majesty no longer has the indisputable
right to make such cesions, but because as they were made with the sole object
that maid lands should be populated, they have been annulled in fact by the
coneessionnaires' not having fulfilled the conditions."

 Onis did not expect his propositions to be accepted, because
 they lacked provisions for drawing the boundary to the Pacific, a
 point on which he truthfully protested lack of authority. Almost
 simultaneously, Monroe issued a message to Congress, on November
 17, which was distinctly unfriendly to Spanish interests. The nego-
 tiation was officially brought to a standstill at the end of the month
 in an exchange of notes mutually withdrawing the unaccepted
 offers.