with the Americans, this position of the French whose help they counted upon, and whose advice they were ordered to follow, caused the greatest alarm. And this was increased a hundred fold by further developments.
For the Conde d'Aranda, a splendid nobleman from Arragon, ambassador of Spain, to whom France was primarily bound, condescended to allow John Jay to wait upon him. Jay's account is interesting, to show how the props were falling from beneath the American cause:
"He began the conference by various remarks on the general principles in which contracting parties should form treaties, on the magnanimity of his sovereign, and on his own disposition to disregard trifling considerations in great matters. Then opening Mitchell's large map of North America, he asked me what were our boundaries. I told him that the boundary between us and the Spanish Dominions was a line drawn through from the head
