The sensational disclosures of Martin's intercepted letter had no deterrent effect upon James Robertson in the attempted execution of his plan for detaching the Cumberland settlements from North Carolina. History has taken no account of the fact that Robertson and the inhabitants now deliberately endeavored to secure an act of separation from North Carolina. In the event of success, the next move planned by the Cumberland leaders, as we have already seen, was to send delegates to New Orleans for the purpose of placing the Cumberland region under the domination of Spain. A hitherto unknown letter, from Robertson to (Miró), dated Nashville, September 2, 1789, proves that a convention of the people was actually held--the first overt step looking to an alliance with Spain. In this letter Robertson says: I must beg your Excellency's permission to take this early opportunity of thanking you for the honor you did me in writing by Mr. White. I still hope that your Government, and these Settlements, are destined to be mutually friendly and usefull, the people here are impressed with the necessity of it. We have just held a Convention; which has agreed that our members shall insist on being Seperated from North Carolina. Unprotected, we are to be obedient to the new Congress of the United States; but we cannot but wish for a more interesting Connection. The United States afford us no protection. The district of Miró is daily plundered and the inhabitants murdered by the Creeks, and Cherokees, unprovoked. For my own part, I conceive highly of the advantages of your Government. [217] A serious obstacle to the execution of the plans of Robertson and the other leaders of the Cumberland settlements was the prompt action of North Carolina. In actual conformity with the wishes of the Western people, as set forth in the petition of Robertson and Hayes, their representatives, made two years earlier, [218] the legislature of North Carolina in December passed the second act of cession, by which the Western territory of North Carolina was ceded to the United States. Instead of securing an act of separation from North Carolina as the preparatory step to forming what Robertson calls "a more interesting connection" with Spain, Robertson and his associates now found themselves and the transmontane region which they represented flung bodily into the arms of the United States. Despite the unequivocal offer of the calculating and desperate Sevier to "deliver" Franklin to Spain, and the ingenious efforts of Robertson and his associates to place the Cumberland region under the domination of Spain, the Spanish court by its temporizing policy of evasion and indecision definitely relinquished the ready opportunities thereby afforded, of utilizing the powerful separatist tendencies of Tennessee for the purpose of adding the empire upon the Western waters to the Spanish domain in America.