INTRODUCTION



E NGLAND was apparently more liberal than Spain or
      France when, in the treaty of I783, she agreed to the
Mississippi River as the western boundary of the United
States. Spain was for limiting the territory of the new
republic on the west to the crest of the Alleghany Moun-
tains, so as to secure to her the opportunity of conquering
from England the territory between the mountains and
the Great River. Strangely enough and inconsistently
enough, France supported Spain in this outrageous effort
to curtail the territory of the new republic after she had
helped the United States to conquer it from England,
or rather after General Clark had wrested it from England
for the colony of Virginia, and while Virginia was still in
possession of it. The seeming liberality of England,
however, may not have been more disinterested than the
scheming of Spain and France in this affair. England
did not believe that the United States could exist as a
permanent government, but that the confederated States
would disintegrate and return to her as colonies. The King