Congress Appoints John Jay Minister to Spain Editorial Note
Congress Appoints John Jay Minister to Spain
The Continental Congress’s decision to send a minister to Spain, the instructions it prepared for him, and its selection of John Jay for the post were all influenced by French efforts to reconcile the varied and sometimes contradictory objectives of its alliances with Spain and with the United States. John Jay’s mission was also shaped by prior, largely unsuccessful, American efforts to secure Spanish support by offering that country the Floridas, and by conflicting claims between the United States and the Spanish empire over navigation of the Mississippi River and possession of “east Louisiana,” the area between the Mississippi and the Appalachians claimed by France until it was ceded to Britain in the Treaty of 1763.
American diplomacy with Spain was challenged from the start by a division of opinion among Spanish foreign policy makers over the wisdom of Spain’s entering into another conflict with Britain as an ally of France, especially one that had American independence as a possible outcome. The strongest supporter of Spain’s entrance into the war was Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, Conde de Aranda (1718–98), former president of the Council of Castile. Aranda had lost favor with the king and been exiled from court in 1773 by an appointment as Spain’s ambassador to Versailles. He considered Britain Spain’s natural and permanent enemy and argued that no opportunity to curtail its power should be lost. Although more cautious than Aranda, José de Gálvez, named minister of the Indies in 1776, recognized the implications the conflict between Britain and its colonies held for his ministerial responsibilities. Soon after he was appointed, he began to gather intelligence through observers, and he then discreetly provided support for American attempts to oust the British from posts in the Floridas and along the Mississippi River.1 Once Spain declared war on Britain, he and other members of his family, especially his nephew, Bernardo de Gálvez (1746–86), played key roles in an extremely successful effort to force Britain to surrender strategic positions important to Spain in North America and the Caribbean.2
Among those opposed to Spain’s participation in another war with Britain were the Marqués de Grimaldi (c. 1720–89), minister of state for foreign affairs until November 1776, and Joseph Moñino, Conde de Floridablanca (1728–1808), who replaced Grimaldi in that post. Although a Francophile, Grimaldi realized that Spain, its American empire still largely intact, had more to lose from another war with Britain than France, which had been stripped of almost all its American colonies in 1763. He advocated neutrality and caution but gathered intelligence about the conflict, a practice Gálvez continued.3 Floridablanca was deeply angry that Spain had had to sacrifice Florida in 1763 to obtain the return of Cuba and the Philippines, but he was even more determined to secure Spain’s position in Europe by recovering Gibraltar, lost to Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Because he feared that the American rebels might reconcile with Britain and then join that country in attacking France and Spain, he also agreed to provide them with financial aid and military supplies. Although he hoped that war would weaken Britain, he refused to make Spain a party to the treaties of alliance and commerce France signed with the United States in February 1778. Instead, he continually searched for options that would both disrupt Britain’s relations with its colonies as much as possible without resulting in their independence and leave Spain in undisputed possession of the lands touched by the Gulf of Mexico.4
On 9 May 1778, Spain offered itself to Britain as mediator of the conflict. Vergennes instructed Gérard to prepare Congress to respond to the new circumstances Spanish involvement might create. Acting both as French minister to the United States and as a spokesman for Juan de Miralles y Trajan (d. 1780), an unaccredited observer sent to Philadelphia by Gálvez, Gérard met with Congress on 15 February 1779. Spain, he told the delegates, had threatened to become a belligerent if Britain rejected its offer of mediation. In the event that Britain accepted, he urged Congress to determine its peace objectives and appoint a negotiator with discretionary powers.5
Gérard was careful to inform Congress that Spain was determined to preserve Mexico and Central and South America as Spanish colonies and to recover the Floridas, for whose loss France had compensated Spain with the western portion of its “Louisiana territory.” Spain would, thus, resist American claims to “east Louisiana” and to the right to navigate the river and to trade through its mouth—demands Spain believed would make the United States a dangerous neighbor.6 Gérard knew that Spain hoped that the war would result in nothing more than a weak confederation of American states locked in long-term quarreling with Great Britain, with Spain and France acting as “co-protectors.” He suggested to Congress, however, that Spain preferred to have the United States rather than Britain as a neighbor and thus might consider an alliance. He reported that Miralles had been authorized to negotiate for the purchase of the Illinois country taken by George Rogers Clark and for the Floridas if the Americans managed to conquer them. Finally, he hinted that, if the Americans took the Floridas and then ceded them to Spain, Spain might reward the United States with a subsidy ample enough to restore American credit in Europe.7
In the course of 1779, Congress reexamined its peace objectives and created a formal diplomatic corps. Jay presided over its most critical discussions about American policy toward Spain until his appointment as minister to Madrid on 27 September 1779. The committee appointed to formulate peace terms with Britain recognized Spain’s interest in the Floridas in its report of 23 February, but not Spain’s concerns about American territorial and commercial objectives related to “east Louisiana.” It believed that the United States had a right to all territories granted by colonial charters and to all territories and privileges obtained in the Western Hemisphere by Britain in the Treaty of Paris of 1763.8 In addition to absolute and unlimited independence, the committee suggested six conditions as “absolutely necessary” and therefore “to be insisted on”: (1) minimum boundaries from Canada to the Floridas and west to the Mississippi, (2) complete British evacuation of United States territory, (3) fishing rights on the banks and coast of Newfoundland, (4) “absolute and unlimited” navigation of the Mississippi to the southern boundary of the United States, (5) free commerce with some port or ports on the river below that boundary, and (6) the cession to the United States of Nova Scotia or the latter’s independence. As bargaining chips the committee recommended waiving the right to engage in the slave and East Indies trades in return for adequate compensation, and pledging not to establish settlements beyond the territorial limits as defined by the peace treaty.9
Congress withdrew navigation of the Mississippi as an ultimatum on 24 March but later restored it. Miralles reported that Jay was among the delegates who believed that Spain would never allow free access to the Mississippi but said Jay had agreed to include the provision as a way of speeding approval of the instructions. Gérard exerted himself to convince Congress that American territorial ambitions would speedily put an end to any hope of an alliance with Spain and that France would be unwilling to continue the war until they had been achieved. Finally, Congress directed its peace commissioner to be guided by the alliance with France and to follow the advice of America’s allies as well as his own best judgment in pursuit of American objectives.10
Without becoming a belligerent, Spain could not itself reconquer the Floridas. Its hope of obtaining them through American efforts explains its supportive posture prior to its declaration of war against Britain in July 1779, a declaration France had persuaded Spain to make only by agreeing to support Spanish objectives. These included destruction of British naval superiority, Gibraltar, Minorca, the Floridas, control of both banks of the Mississippi, and elimination of English pockets of settlement in Central America.11 Believing that Gibraltar could be obtained only by an attack on the British Isles, Floridablanca insisted on naval operations in European waters. He compelled France to accept Spain’s recovery of Pensacola and Mobile, daggers pointing at New Orleans and trade on the Mississippi, as specific objectives of the secret Convention of Aranjuez, which was concluded on 6 April 1779. The pact committed the two powers to wage war against Britain and bound them to make neither peace nor truce until Gibraltar was restored to Spain. Floridablanca grudgingly acknowledged that American independence was one of France’s war objectives, but he made no commitment either to recognize the United States or to enter into an alliance with the Americans. He periodically affirmed his commitment to France to continue the war until the Americans had achieved independence, but he endeavored to define it in ever more limited ways.12
After learning that Spain had declared war on Britain on 21 June 1779, Congress, urged by Gérard and Miralles13 and encouraged by Spain’s prior support, decided to send a minister plenipotentiary to Madrid to negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce and to obtain financial aid. The Franco-American Treaty of Alliance barred either party from acquiring territory “possessed” by the other. Convinced that Spain would be precluded from recovering the Floridas if it became a party to the alliance “unaltered,” Congress waived objections in advance to ensure that “nothing may be wanting” on its part to persuade Spain to become a party to its treaty with France.
Despite repeated warnings from Gérard and Miralles, Congress continued to assume that Spain would accept American acquiescence in a Spanish conquest of the Floridas, which would give Spain control of both banks of the Mississippi at its mouth, as a quid pro quo for an alliance, financial aid, and free navigation of the Mississippi and a port of deposit in Spanish territory. Jay and Congress concluded that the United States would be ill-advised to “cede her any of our rights” or to do anything other than “insist upon our right to the navigation of the Mississippi.” Congress, nevertheless, continued to hope that mutual struggle against a common enemy would lead Spain to receive a minister and enter into an alliance.
Freed by its belligerency from dependence on American forces to regain Florida for it, Spain nevertheless pressed for American participation in a campaign to take East Florida. Congress knew it would not be able to make a substantial contribution. In draft instructions for the minister to Spain prepared between 5 and 28 September 1779, it promised that the United States would endeavor to provide provisions and naval stores to support a Spanish effort. The final version of Congress’s instructions was more realistic about the prospects for American action, suggesting that only a desperately needed loan or subsidy would allow the United States to cooperate with its allies against the common enemy. Bernardo de Gálvez was notified in advance that Spain was about to declare war so that he could initiate military operations on the Mississippi immediately. By October 1779, he had taken three key British posts and gained effective control of the lower Mississippi without American assistance, thereby enabling Spain to claim the territory by right of conquest and significantly diminishing the possibility that the United States could offer concessions to gain recognition and its other objectives in the region.14
The still-smoldering Deane-Lee controversy significantly influenced the selection of diplomatic appointees. Quarrels among the three commissioners previously sent to France laid bare the pitfalls of conducting diplomacy by committee. Late in March 1779, Congress had voted to appoint “but one Plenipotentiary Minister or Commissioner” for each European court. Neither Deane nor Arthur Lee survived the reorganization. A motion to recall Franklin failed, and he was left as sole minister to France.15 Lee’s partisans sought to have him named minister to Spain on grounds that he had already conducted negotiations with the Spanish. They also hoped to send John Adams, a Lee ally, to negotiate peace with Britain. It was not until 27 September that congressional factions compromised and named Adams peace commissioner and Jay minister to Spain. Jay’s election was regarded as a victory for the pro-French (Deane) faction, and both Gérard and Miralles were exultant. Miralles claimed to have lobbied for Jay by suggesting that, since there were no dukes or grandees in America, sending the president of Congress would show respect for the king. Unspoken was their belief that what they assumed to be Jay’s personal views on the Mississippi would make him even more acceptable. Both men, Jay later remarked, “entertained higher opinions of my Docility than were well founded.”16
Having negotiated family support to care for his ailing father and his son Peter Augustus, Jay quickly accepted an offer from Gérard to accompany him on his return voyage to France. Accompanied by his wife, Sally; his official secretary, William Carmichael; his personal secretary, Henry Brockholst Livingston; and his nephew Peter Jay Munro, John Jay boarded the ship Confederacy in October 1779.17
1. For early American projects for recovery of the Floridas, see , 4: 15; 8: 566–67; , 11: 210–12, 232–34; 12: 83; Kathryn Trimmer Abbey, “Spanish Projects for the Reoccupation of the Floridas during the American Revolution,” Hispanic American Historical Review 9, no. 3 (1929): 265–72; John Walton Caughey, Bernardo de Galvez in Louisiana, 1776–1783 (Berkeley, Calif., 1934), 86–91, 102–34; Thomas Chavez, Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift (Albuquerque, N.M., 2002), 61–62; Light Townshend Cummins, Spanish Observers and the American Revolution, 1775–1783 (Baton Rouge, La., 1992), 83–88; James Alton James, “Spanish Influence in the West during the American Revolution,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 4, no. 2 (1917): 195–98, 203–5; , 494–99; J. Barton Starr, Tories, Dons, and Rebels: The American Revolution in British West Florida (Gainesville, Fla., 1975), 61–63, 70–71, 78–121; J. Leitch Wright Jr., Florida in the American Revolution (Gainesville, 1975), 38–39, 42–44, 46–52, 65–66, 70–71, 75–76. On aid secured by Arthur Lee and shipped by Gardoqui and Sons of Bilboa directly to the United States, see , 2: 492, 516, 690–91; Louis W. Potts, Arthur Lee, a Virtuous Revolutionary (Baton Rouge and London, 1981), 171–72; and , 220, 365, 480, 486–87.
2. See Light Townsend Cummins, “The Gálvez Family and Spanish Participation in the Independence of the United States of America,” Revista Complutense de Historia de América 32 (2006): 179–96; Abbey, “Spanish Projects,” 273–74, 280–85; and Starr, Tories, Dons, and Rebels, 148–58.
3. See Cummins, “Gálvez Family,” 182, 184, and Spanish Observers, 33.
4. Although he supported Spain’s entrance into the war against Britain, Aranda recognized that if Britain’s colonies achieved their independence, they might constitute a threat to Spain’s. On the attitudes of the various Spanish ministers toward the conflict, see , 86–87, 91–94, 100–101; Cummins, Spanish Observers, 27–31, 34, 46–47, 52, 53, 57, 67, 78, 79, 82; Charles Petrie, King Charles III of Spain (London, 1971), 166–70; Joaquán Oltra and María Angeles Pérez Samper, El Conde de Aranda y los Estados Unidos (Barcelona, 1987), 32–35, 72–76, 99–102, 149–240; and , 56.
5. For a detailed discussion of Gérard’s attempts to influence congressional decisions on American objectives, see William C. Stinchcombe, The American Revolution and the French Alliance (Syracuse, 1969), 62–76.
6. Floridablanca blamed France for Spain’s losses under the Treaty of 1763. One of the arguments Vergennes offered in his attempt to persuade Spain to enter the war was the chance to regain the Floridas. This and ejection of the British from their logging colony in Honduras would give Spain virtual control over the Caribbean. See Montmorin to Vergennes, 22 Sept. 1780, FrPMAE: Correspondance politique, Espagne, 602: 8.
7. , 11: 381–83, 12: 71–73; , 3: 39–40; , 97–102; , 1: 29–30.
8. See the President of Congress to JJ, 17 Oct. 1780, C, PPAmP: Franklin Papers (EJ: 2661). Transfer of treaty rights was not commonly accepted under international law. This was one consideration that led Vergennes to withhold support for American claims to the Floridas and to navigation on the Mississippi. , 1: 27–33; Cummins, Spanish Observers, 152–53.
9. , 13: 239–44, and DNA: PCC, item 25, 1: 71–74. The report is in Gouverneur Morris’s hand. Vergennes declared American pretensions to territory bordering the Mississippi “absurd.” See his letter to La Luzerne, 22 Oct. 1780, FrPMAE: CP-EU, 14: 159.
10. Georgia, fearing that a peace settlement on the basis of uti possidetis would deprive it of a considerable portion of its lands, moved to reconsider JJ’s instructions. Congress, however, reaffirmed its determination to assert the United States’ right to free navigation of the Mississippi “into and from the sea” in instructions to JJ of 4 Oct. 1780. See , 1: 49–50; , 13: 489; 16: 349–50; , 14–21, 218–23; John J. Meng, ed., Despatches and Instructions of Conrad Alexandre Gérard, 1778–1780: Correspondence of the First French Minster of the United States with the Comte de Vergennes (Baltimore, 1939), 433–35, 458, 529.
11. On Britain’s presence in Honduras, see Frank Griffith Dawson, “William Pitt’s Settlement at Black River on the Mosquito Shore: A Challenge to Spain in Central America, 1732–1787,” Hispanic American Historical Review 63, no. 4 (1983): 677–706; Juan F. Yela Utrilla, España Ante La Independencia de los Estados Unidos (Lérida, 1925), 1: 43ff.; and , 84–86. For reasons explained above, JJ’s instructions directed him to procure a transfer to the United States of concessions made to Britain on the island of Salt Tortuga and in the bay and rivers of Honduras.
12. Meng, Despatches, 75; Henri Doniol, Histoire de la participation de la France à l’établissement des États-Unis d’Amérique (5 vols.; Paris, 1886–92), 3: 803–10; , 136–58; Wright, Florida in the Am. Rev., 70–71, 75–76, 111–12.
13. Gálvez had promised Miralles that he would be appointed “Minister to the United States when His Catholic Majesty is disposed to appoint one.” See , 1: 45.
14. See , 14: 924–25; 15: 1042–43, 1046–47, 1048, 1118–21; , 13: 488–89; 14: 274–76, 279–80; and Ternant to JJ, 26 Feb. 1780, ALS, NNC (EJ: 7163).
15. , 13: 364, 499–500.
16. Vergennes stated that Congress had made an excellent choice, that JJ was a man of honest character and unerring principle. See Vergennes to Montmorin, 10 Dec. 1779, FrPMAE: CP-E, 596: 352; , 12: 438; 13: 544, 556–57, 558, 562, 563–69, 588–91; Stinchcombe, Am. Rev. and the French Alliance, 73–75; , 101–4; , 11–13; and , 119–21.
17. See JJ to Frederick Jay and to George Clinton, both 16 Sept., to Alexander Hamilton, 18 Sept., and to Robert R. Livingston and Gouverneur Morris, 29 Sept. 1779, above.