These various phases of the subject, and the situation of affairs at that particular time, gave to the tavern-talkers a wide field for speculation and conjecture, as well as alarm. The truth is, the correspondence and communications alleged to have passed between Governor Miro and certain citizens of Kentucky and the Cumberland country, about this time, would read rather curiously if offered in court to vindicate the Kentucky and Cumberland citizens from a charge of disloyalty to the United States. Col. Robertson, however, said nothing but “Miro”; and he subsequently demonstrated that he knew what he was saying. It is suggested--and this is probably the correct view--that the main purpose of these persons in Kentucky and Cumberland who were in correspondence with Governor Miro was, in view of their unanswered appeals to Congress for help and protection, “if the federal Union can not give aid and protection to us in life, liberty and property, and also secure to us the free and peaceable exercise of the right to navigate the Mississippi river with our products, why then, Spain having promised all this, we will unite our fortunes with the Spanish.” They knew that whoever could keep the Indians at peace with them, and at the same time control New Orleans and the navigation of the Mississippi, was the absolute arbiter of their destiny, inasmuch as, without the right to use the Mississippi, there was no market they could reach with their products. August 26, 1779, Galvez, then governor civil and military and intendant of Louisiana, appointed, as third in command in the campaign which he was about to undertake against the British, Don Estevan Miro, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Congress observed with satisfaction the rupture between Great Britain and Spain; and, in the fall of 1779, sent a minister to the Spanish court, with instructions to negotiate a treaty of alliance, and particularly to insist on the free navigation of the Mississippi river. To this the court of Spain responded: “We are disposed to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and to enter into a treaty of alliance and commerce with you; but if you wish us to consent to your admission into the great family of nations, you must subscribe to the right of Spain to the exclusive navigation of the Mississippi, and consent to our taking possession of both the Floridas and of all the territory extending from the left bank of that river to the back settlements of the former British provinces, according to the proclamation of 1763.” In this proposition, strange as it may seem, Spain was supported by France; and up to 1788, and indeed on up to October 27, 1795, Spain did control the Mississippi. On this latter date, and about six months before Tennessee was admitted into the Union, after long and tedious negotiations, a treaty was concluded between the United States and Spain, a part of the fourth article of