At this time the brilliant and restless soldier
Galvez had left Louisiana and become Viceroy of Mexico, thus removing
from Louisiana the one Spaniard whose energy and military capacity would
have rendered him formidable to the Americans in the event of war. He
was succeeded in the government of the creole province by Don Estevan
Miro, already colonel of the Louisiana regiment.
Gardoqui was not an able man, although with some capacity for a certain
kind of intrigue. He was a fit representative of the Spanish court, with
its fundamental weakness and its impossible pretensions. He entirely
misunderstood the people with whom he had to deal, and whether he was or
was not himself personally honest, he based his chief hopes of success
in dealing with others upon their supposed susceptibility to the
influence of corruption and dishonorable intrigue. He and Jay could come
to no agreement, and the negotiations were finally broken off. Before
this happened, in the fall of 1786, Jay in entire good faith had taken a
step which aroused furious anger in the West. [Footnote: State Dep.
MSS., No. 81, vol. ii., pp. 193, 241, 285, etc.; Reports of Sec'y John
Jay.] Like so many other statesmen of the day, he did not realize how
fast Kentucky had grown, and deemed the navigation question one which
would not be of real importance to the West for two decades to come.
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