Brooks: Diplomacy and the Borderlads 161
south banks of the rivers along which it ran. The other question
arose from the wording of the cession of the Floridas. Onis had
phrased his project in such a manner as to make the United States
renounce its former pretensions to West Florida. Such a conces-
sion in theory was naturally unpalatable to Adams.
 When Hyde de Neuville took up the latest proposal with Onis,
the latter received Adams' demands with an intentional display of
anger, desiring "to alarm him more than the government.'" He
believed that Adams depended on the French minister to put
through the negotiation and that the latter had definite orders
from Paris not to allow it to be suspended. Thus Onis thought he
could be quite firm in talking to Hyde de Neuville. And for some
days the Spaniard, pleading indisposition, did not see Adams.
 He stated rather incidentally in his report to Madrid that he was
incapacitated on account of chilblains. But he added, and this was
the important fact, that he considered it more efficacious to carry
on the negotiations through a third party, who could convey his
firmness and his semblance of anger to Adams without the danger
of a direct affront to the secretary. Onis told Hyde de Neuville that
he would accept a boundary settlement of the Sabine, a line leaving
the Red at longitude 1000 west, and the Forty-second Parallel from
the Arkansas to the sea. Those were the final terms, although
Adams did endeavor to modify them further (Art. 3 of the treaty).
 Hyde de Neuville wrote a memorandum in which he placed the
 Onis proposal of February 9 and that of Adams of February 13 in
 parallel columns, noting the agreements and differences which his
 conversations with the two men had revealed." Among the lesser
 disputes which arose, after the major issues were so nearly agreed
 upon that Adams allowed himself for the first time to feel confident
 of a settlement," were those over his opposition to the admission of
 Spanish ships in ports of the ceded territories on the same footing
 as those of the United States; over whether the boundary should
 be drawn in the center or along the west and the south banks of the
 rivers; and over Onis' objection to the limitation of United States
 liability for claims on Spain to five million dollars.
 Upon the first point Adams yielded to the compromise of admit-
 ting Spanish ships, exclusively, for twelve years to St. Augustine
 and Pensacola under the same duties as United States ships (Art.
 15 of the treaty).