AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 23 
Se NTE 
turous expedition of Col. Clark, is contained in the Annals 
of the West, covering the period of 1778 and 1779. 
With the acknowledgment of American independence by 
the treaty of 1783, the east bank of the Mississippi valley, as 
far south as 31° north latitude, became an integral part o 
the United States territory, while Spain still retained her 
possession of the west bank, including the navigable outlet 
of this valley. This ill-defined boundry, especially object- 
ionable in the control thus given to Spain, over the free nav- 
igation of the Mississippi, was the cause of much disagree- 
ment, naturally increasing with the progressive advance of 
settlement in the upper country. Spain, from the tirst, jeal- 
ous of the progress of the new republic, established on her 
very borders, whose institutions were so at variance with all 
her policy and national exclusiveness, used her position to 
check this growth, and if possible, break up the federal 
union. In this view, she placed obstructions on commerce, 
denied the right before guaranteed of free navigation of the 
Mississippi, and insidiously fostered, and*‘directly encour- 
aged plans for the secession of the southwest. Nothing but 
the weakness of the federal union prevented actual hostil- 
ities, which, on several occasions, nearly reached a crisis, 
In fact, near the close of the elder Adams’s administration 
in 1800, a United States military organization{was fitted out 
for the capture of New Orleans, and the executior of this 
military movement was only prevented by the accession of 
a new administration under Jefferson. Under these uncer- 
tain and discouraging circumstances extending to the close 
of the eighteenth century, the interests of the entire Miss- 
issippi valley were seriously injured, but with the opening 
of the present century, the complication of European poli- 
tics again opened up the way for the extension of American 
authority over the entire Mississippi valley. Spain, fearing 
the loss of her extensive colonial possessions to the south, 
by a secret treaty with France, dated in 1802, transferred to 
