178 University of California Publications in History

offensive that he declined to receive it." Erving, some years later
when his ire had perhaps grown through meditation, wrote that
he "returned in a state of great irritation and mortification, not,
as Mr. Adams has supposed, because the negotiation had been re-
moved to Washington, but because in the course of it I had been
treated with indignity.""
 After Erving's departure, Forsyth's presentation of the demand
that the declaration concerning the land grants be signed pro-
duced a storm of protest and a violent court intrigue stirred up
by Alag6n and his associates. Most active among the latter was the
minister of grace and justice, Juan Esteban Lozano de Torres, a
former chocolate seller of Cadiz. The appointment of this illiterate
and unscrupulous man is one of the notorious incidents in the
corrupt reign of Ferdinand VII. Among the tales told of him are
that he seldom presented himself to the King without shedding
tears of affection, and that he always carried the King's picture
conspicuously hanging from his neck." He and the Duke of Alag6n,
both described by one Spanish writer as belonging in a "gallery of
sinister figures,"" at the time appeared the most influential asso-
ciates of Ferdinand, with the possible exception of Tatistcheff.
Alag6n, commander of the King's personal guards, was also his
constant companion in revelry.
 It can hardly be supposed that all the officials were subject to the
same influences, and such a sane observer as Wellesley saw that the
more fundamental bases of resistance to the Adams-Onis Treaty
were concerns over the extremely large territorial sessions and
over the recovery and protection of the Spanish colonial empire.
Forsyth specifically noted as major objections that the United
States' boundary should not have been allowed to extend to the
"Pacifick," and that Britain would be offended."
 The results of this intrigue were the overthrow and banishment
 from the court on June 12 of Irujo and Heredia, an attempt to
 obtain English backing, and a continued refusal to give satisfac-
 tory replies to Forsyth. Wellesley reported that members of the
 Consejo de Estado approached him privately to ask if his govern-
 ment had remonstrated against the cession of the Floridas, and
 that he had replied that Britain had not chosen to interfere even
 in view of the "inconvenience" which might result from the United
 States' possession of the Floridas."