The war in Georgia and South Carolina had cut off the Creek trade with the Atlantic coast; and consequently, McGillivray had no difficulty in directing the whole of it to Pensacola. But after peace was established, the Atlantic traders were again ready, with their pack ponies, to take the trails that led to western Georgia and eastern Alabama. Panton at once saw that the monopoly of his house was in danger; and that to avert it, he must bring about an understanding between the Spanish government, himself, and McGillivray, like that which he had previously effected with the British. He, accordingly, entered into the treaty with the Spaniards, of which mention was made in the previous chapter. To be effective, however, he knew that treaty must be supplemented by another between the Indians and the Spaniards. In playing his cards, Panton was looking solely to the advantage of his house. But it was far otherwise with McGillivray. If he induced his people to make such a treaty, it was because he saw clearly it was to their advantage. He rejoiced, too, to find that he was about to reap the fruit of that policy by which he had brought them through the period of the Revolutionary War, stronger, and more numerous than they ever were before; a condition which excited the fears of the Spaniards, and disposed them to seek the alliance of such a powerful tribe by liberal concessions. Accordingly, a treaty between the Creeks and the Seminoles represented by McGillivray, and Spain by Governor Miro of New Orleans, assisted by O’Niell, Governor of West-Florida, and Don Martin Navarro, Intendent General of Florida, was entered into on the first of June, 1784, at Pensacola.[42] The relations created by that treaty between the Indians and Spaniards were close and intimate, and seem to have been observed substantially, although not always in form, up to the last day of Spanish rule in Florida. Its conclusion was followed by McGillivray obtaining a commission with the pay of Colonel in the Spanish army. By that treaty he felt, as he had reason to feel, that he had secured for his tribe an alliance with a strong European power, one that had just expelled the British from the Floridas; and, that thus fortified, he was in a condition to meet the Americans on the eastern frontier in a manner that would prevent their threatened encroachment upon the rights of his people; not by war, however, in which the Creeks were to engage with the United States, for such a course, his judgment told him, would end in their destruction. His treaty with the Spaniards was but a card which he proposed to use, to give his nation the imposing aspect of one to be courted rather than despised. To render its attitude still more imposing, he announced his determination to prevent any further encroachments by the whites upon the Indian territory in Georgia.