160 University of California Publications in History
was authorized by the Cabinet, however, as was Adams' plan to
limit the assumption of claims liability by the United States to five
million dollars.
 Adams had again raised the question of claims, knowing that
some arrangement would have to be made. It would be demanded
not only by the claimants but by the public, which had been stirred
by the Meade case, by the seizures of traders in New Mexico, and
by other instances where private citizens had suffered. Adams
knew further that no money could be had from Spain and that a
mutual renunciation of obligations between the two governments
would be included in the treaty. Onis realized that the claims
would amount to more than the figure stipulated and was glad to
have Spain relieved of the burden. Little had been said about this
question in the negotiations, and at no time had it been mentioned
in connection with the boundary. The two problems were debated
and decided separately.
 Onis knew well enough the views of different persons on the
whole negotiation, and that it was not entirely in the hands of the
secretary of state, however resolutely that official expressed his
opinions. "You cannot imagine," he wrote to Irujo, "how many
meetings and discussions have been held."" He recognized the
danger of popular opposition to the line of the Sabine, especially
when Erving was alleged to have written to a Congressman that
he could have obtained the Colorado.
 To bring Adams and Onis into closer agreement more activity
was necessary on the part of Hyde de Neuville, who was evidently
moved only by a desire to get them to reach some sort of peaceful
settlement. Onis believed that the French minister had been sent to
sound him on the possibility of setting the boundary at the Brazos
de Dios, between the Colorado and the Sabine. Adams' own de-
tailed account mentions no such proposal at this late date, although
it does confirm the sending of Hyde de Neuville to ask a definite
answer on Adams' proposal of the thirteenth." Adams wished to
have the line continue up the Red River as far as longitude 1020
west, and he still endeavored to have it drawn from the head of the
Arkansas to the Pacific on the Forty-first Parallel." He and Hyde
de Neuville conferred at length on these questions, as well as on two
others which remained unsettled up to the last few days. One was
whether the boundary should follow the center or the west and the