236 The Winning of the West 



only learning, and had not yet completely mastered, 

 the difficult art of self-government. 



It was the existence of these Western separatists, 

 nominally the fiercest foes of Spain, that in reality 

 gave Spain the one real hope of staying the Western 

 advance. In 1794, the American agents in Spain 

 were carrying on an interminable correspondence 

 with the Spanish Court in the effort to come to 

 some understanding about the boundaries. 32 The 

 Spanish authorities were solemnly corresponding 

 with the American envoys, as if they meant peace; 

 yet at the same time they had authorized Carondelet 

 to do his best to treat directly with the American 

 States of the West so as to bring about their separa- 

 tion from the Union. In 1794, Wilkinson, who 

 was quite incapable of understanding that his in- 

 famy was heightened by the fact that he wore the 

 uniform of a Brigadier-General of the United States, 

 entered into negotiations for a treaty, the base of 

 which should be the separation of the Western 

 States from the Atlantic States. 33 He had sent 

 two confidential envoys to Carondelet. Carondelet 

 jumped at the chance of once more trying to sepa- 

 rate the West from the East ; and under Wilkinson's 

 directions he renewed his efforts to try by purchase 

 and pension to attach some of the leading Kentuck- 

 ians to Spain. As a beginning he decided to grant 



3J American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I, p. 443, etc. ; 

 letters of Carmichael and Short to Gardoqui, Oct. i, 1793; to 

 Alcudia, Jan. 7, 1794, etc., etc. 



33 Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Al- 

 cudia, July 30, 1794. 



