172 Uiversity of California Publications in History

 EunOPr's RECEPTION OF THE TEATYa
Of even more immediate importance was the foreign reception of
the treaty. In Madrid, after an early favorable reaction, serious
resistance developed; whereas in this country the only serious
deprecation came as a result of a political machination of twenty-
five years later.
 Onis was relieved at the conclusion of the "arduous and confused
 [escabroso] negotiation," and prepared to leave for home.' The
purport of his whole series of despatches is that he felt he had made
a good bargain in exchanging the Floridas for Texas (as he inter-
preted it), and that the concession in the Northwest was necessary
to obtain a peaceful agreement.
 Hyde de Neuville not only congratulated Onis on obtaining all
that could be expected "in disputing the terrain foot by foot,'" but
sent to Paris a 25-page memoir on the whole affair, wherein he
described it by saying:
 In this long struggle of noble, but too easily irritable passions, I have een
at times force which offend, weahnes which misleads, I have seen exaggerated
pretenions, imprudent ideas, ill-studied calculations; but also more often
honor, the interest of the Country, true patriotism in the struggle.... Reason,
wisdom, generous entiments have prevailed."
 Copies of the treaty were sent to Spain by Don Joaquin Zamo-
rano, Spanish consul at Alexandria, Virginia, and by John For-
syth, the new United States minister, who sailed for Madrid on the
U.S. sloop-of-war "Hornet" in March. Before an attempt is made
to consider Forsyth and tell of his adventures in a field which
proved foreign to his abilities and experience, it is important to
note the arrival in Madrid on April 24 of Onis' messenger, and the
reception accorded his news.
 Throughout the study of diplomacy at Madrid in these years,
one receives the impression that the most competent and cool-
headed foreign observer there was the British ambassador, Henry
Wellesley. His despatches to Castlereagh give one of the clearest
accounts available of the complex procedure there. And although
for part of the time the Russian Tatistcheff displaced him in the
King's intimacy, no doubt Wellesley, because of his years of resi-
dence there, could perceive what was going on more readily than
Erving or the inexperienced Forsyth.