The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 197 



tions carried on toward the close of the Revolu 

 tionary War between the representatives of Spain, 

 France, and the United States, Spain had taken high 

 ground in reference to this and to all other Western 

 questions, and France had supported her in her de 

 sire to exclude the Americans from all rights in the 

 vast regions beyond the Alleghanies. At that time 

 the delegates from the Southern, no less than from 

 the Northern, States, in the Continental Congress, 

 showed much weakness in yielding to this attitude 

 of France and Spain. On the motion of those from 

 Virginia all the delegates with the exception of 

 those from North Carolina voted to instruct Jay, 

 then Minister to Spain, to surrender outright the 

 free navigation of the Mississippi. Later, when he 

 was one of the Commissioners to treat for peace, 

 they practically repeated the blunder by instructing 

 Jay and his colleagues to assent to whatever France 

 proposed. With rare wisdom and courage Jay re 

 pudiated these instructions. The chief credit for 

 the resulting diplomatic triumph, almost as essential 

 as the victory at Yorktown itself to our national 

 well-being, belongs to him, and by his conduct he 

 laid the men of the West under an obligation which 

 they never acknowledged during his lifetime. 3 



Shortly after his return to America he was made 

 Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and was serving as 



3 It is not the least of Mann Butler's good points that in 

 his "History" he does full justice to Jay. Another Kentuck- 

 ian, Mr. Thomas Marshall Green, has recently done the same 

 in his "Spanish Conspiracy." 



