These letters, messages and communications between Governor Miro and leading citizens of Miro District are more simple and straightforward than diplomatic. The reader of this part of our history, however, must keep in mind the precarious condition of the citizens of the Miro District at this period: a vast wilderness of more than two hundred and fifty miles behind them, savage Indians on both sides and the Spanish in front of them; with their state government and Congress both so weak that neither was able to extend them the slightest aid or protection--thus situated, they very naturally turned in the direction that not only had the power but gave the promise of protection and assistance. Miro, in acknowledging the compliment conveyed by bestowing his name on the new court district, said: “It increases my desire to contribute to the development of the resources of that province and the prosperity of its inhabitants.” In the year 1790, the Spanish court, contrary to the advice of Governor Miro, made a formal order levying a tax or duty of fifteen per cent. on all produce or freight carried down the Mississippi river. This order so inflamed the people of Kentucky and Miro District that it had the effect feared by Miro, of practically breaking off and forever ending further negotiations between him and the people of Miro District on the subject of the Cumberland country becoming a Spanish province. Judge Martin, in his history of Louisiana, says that, at about the period of time when these letters were passing, there were five parties in the western country--one in favor of the formation of a new republic unconnected with the United States, and a close alliance with Spain; another that wished the western part of the United States to become a portion of the province of Louisiana and to submit to the laws of Spain; a third, desirous of war with Spain, an open invasion of Louisiana and the seizure of the Mississippi and New Orleans; a fourth, proposing by a show of war to prevail on Congress to extort from Spain the right to the free navigation of the Mississippi; the fifth, as unnatural as the second, was to solicit France to procure a retrocession of Louisiana and to extend her protection to Kentucky and Cumberland. The administration of Miro in Louisiana terminated with the year 1791. In a letter to the Spanish court, written in the previous year, asking permission to return to Spain, he says: “I have now had the honor of serving the King, always with distinguished zeal, for thirty years and three months, of which twenty-one years and eight months in America, until the state of my health requires my return to Europe.” He returned to Spain, where he continued his military career, being promoted from the rank of brigadier to that of lieutenant-general. “He carried with him,” says Judge Martin, “the good wishes and regrets of the colonies.”