Louisiana and Aaron Burr 305 



once conferred would never be withdrawn ; but Mo- 

 rales, under pretence that the Americans had slept 

 on their rights by failing to discover some other spot 

 as a treaty port, declared that the right of deposit 

 had lapsed, and would not be renewed. The Gov- 

 ernor, Salcedo who had succeeded Gayoso, when 

 the latter died of yellow fever, complicated by a 

 drinking-bout with Wilkinson was not in sym- 

 pathy with the movement; but this mattered little. 

 Under the cumbrous Spanish colonial system, the 

 Governor, though he disapproved of the actions of 

 the Intendant, could not reverse them, and Morales 

 paid no heed to the angry protests of the Spanish 

 Minister at Washington, who saw that the Ameri- 

 cans were certain in the end to fight rather than to 

 lose the only outlet for the commerce of the West. 4 

 It seems probable that the Intendant's action was 

 due to the fact that he deemed the days of Spanish 

 dominion numbered, and, in his jealousy of the 

 Americans, wished to place the new French authori- 

 ties in the strongest possible position; but the act 

 was not done with the knowledge of France. 



Of this, however, the Westerners were ignorant. 

 They felt sure that any alteration in policy so fatal 

 to their interests must be merely a foreshadowing 

 of the course the French intended thereafter to fol- 



4 Gayarr6, III, 576. The King of Spain, at the instigation 

 of Godoy, disapproved the order of Morales, but so late that 

 the news of the disapproval reached Louisiana only as the 

 French were about to take possession. However, the rever- 

 sal of the order rendered the course of the further negotia- 

 tions easier. 



