that the Confederacy might be divided into several distinct confederacies, its great extent and various interests being incompatible with a single government. The eastern members were suspected by some of leaning towards some anti-republican establishment, (the effect of their late confusions,) or of being less desirous or hopeful of preserving the unity of the empire. For the first time, the idea of separate confederacies had got into the newspapers. It appeared to-day under the Boston head. Whatever the views of the leading men in the Eastern States may be, it would seem that the great body of the people, particularly in Connecticut, are equally indisposed either to dissolve or divide the Confederacy, or to submit to any anti-republican innovations.53
Nothing noted till
Colonel GRAYSON and Mr. CLARK having lately moved to have the military stores at Springfield, in Massachusetts, removed to some place of greater security, the motion was referred to the secretary at war, who this day reported against the same, as his report will show. No opposition was made to the report, and it seemed to be the general sense of Congress that his reasons were satisfactory. The movers of the proposition, however, might suppose the thinness of Congress (eight states only being present) to bar any hope of successful opposition.
Memorandum.—Called with Mr. Bingham to-day on Mr. Guardoqui, and had a long conversation touching the western country, the navigation of the Mississippi, and commerce, as these objects relate to Spain and the United States. Mr. Bingham opened the conversation with intimating, that there was reason to believe the western people were exceedingly alarmed at the idea of the projected treaty which was to shut up the Mississippi, and were forming committees of correspondence, &c., for uniting their councils and interests. Mr. Guardoqui, with some perturbation, replied, that, as a friend to the United States, he was sorry for it, for they mistook their interest; but that, as the minister of Spain, he had no reason to be so. The result of what fell in the course of the conversation from Mr. Madison and Mr. Bingham was, that it was the interest of the two nations to live in harmony; that if Congress were disposed to treat with Spain on the ground of a cession of the Mississippi, it would be out of their power to enforce the treaty; that an attempt would be the means of populating the western country with additional rapidity; that the British had their eye upon that field, would countenance the separation of the western from the eastern part of North America, promote the settlement of it, and hereafter be able to turn the force springing up in that quarter against Spanish America, in cooperation with their naval armaments; that Spain offered nothing in fact to the United States in the commercial scale which she did not grant to all the other nations from motives of interest.
Mr. Guardoqui would not listen to the idea of a right to the navigation of the Mississippi by the United States, contending, that the possession of the two banks at the mouth shut the door against any such pretension. Spain never would give up this point. He lamented that he had been here so long without effecting any thing, and foresaw that the consequences would be very disagreeable.
What would those consequences be? He evaded an answer by repeating general expressions. Spain could make her own terms, he said, with Great Britain. He considered the commercial connection proposed as entirely in favor of the United States, and that in a little time the ports of Spain would be shut against fish. He was asked, whether against all fish, or only against fish from the United States. From all places not in treaty, he said, with Spain. Spain would act according to her own ideas. She would not be governed by other people's ideas of her interest.
He was very sorry for the instructions passed by Virginia; he foresaw bad consequences from them. He had written to soften the matter as well as he could, but that troops and stores would certainly reinforce New Orleans in consequence of the resolutions.
He had not conferred at all with the minister of foreign affairs since October, and did not expect to confer again. He did not expect to remain much longer in America. He wished he might not be a true prophet; but it would be found that we mistook our interest, and that Spain would make us feel the vulnerable side of our commerce by abridging it in her ports.
With an air of ostensible jocoseness, he hinted that the people of Kentucky would
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