Yrujo acted the part of a true friend to both countries, in trying by such arguments to reconcile his Government to the loss of Louisiana; but there were limits to his good-will. He held that Spain could not afford to part with Florida. Yrujo went to the extreme of concession when he reconciled his Government to the loss of New Orleans, and nothing would reconcile him to the further loss of Mobile and Pensacola. Only on the theory that Spanish America was already ruined by the cession of Louisiana could Yrujo argue in favor of selling Florida.
On receiving Yrujo's protests of September 4 and 27, Jefferson's first feeling was of anger. He sent a strong body of troops to Natchez. "The Government of Spain," he wrote to Dupont de Nemours,[1] "has protested against the right of France to transfer, and it is possible she may refuse possession, and that may bring on acts of force; but against such neighbors as France there and the United States here, what she can expect from so gross a compound of folly and false faith is not to be sought in the book of wisdom." The folly of such conduct might be clear, but the charge of false faith against Spain for protesting against being deprived of her rights, seemed unjust, especially in the mouth of Jefferson, who meant to claim West Florida under a Franco-Spanish treaty which was acknowledged by all parties to have transferred Louisiana alone.
Only a week before this letter was written, the
- ↑ Jefferson to Dupont, Nov. 1, 1803; Works, iv. 508.
