I went from the Count's to M. Rayneval's chamber, for I had not seen him since his return from England. He gave me the same reason for his journey, which I had just received from the Count. We then talked of his memoir and the Spanish negotiation. He said much in favor of the conciliatory line he had proposed, and of the advantages of placing the Indian nations on the _west_ side of it, under the _protection_ of Spain, and those on the _east_, under that of the United States; that the rights of those nations would be thereby secured, and future disputes between us and Spain avoided. I replied, that so far as our claims might affect those Indian nations, it was a matter solely between us and them; and that admitting them to be independent, they certainly had a right to choose their own protectors; and, therefore, that we could have no right, without their knowledge or consent, to choose for them. I also made the same remark to him respecting the recency of these Spanish claims, which I had just before done to Count de Vergennes. He said it was a subject which Count de Florida Blanca had not understood, and imputed their former ideas of our extending to the Mississippi, to their ignorance respecting those matters; hence it became evident, from whom they had borrowed their present ideas. On the 27th of September, Mr Vaughan returned here from England with the courier that brought Mr Oswald's new commission, and very happy were we to see it. Copies of it have already been sent to you, so that I will not lengthen this letter by inserting it here; nor will I add anything further on this head at present, than to assure you, that Mr Vaughan greatly merits our acknowledgments. The next thing to be done, was to prepare and draw up the proposed articles. They were soon completed and settled between us and Mr Oswald, by whom they were sent to his Court, with letters declaring his opinion, that they ought to be accepted and agreed to; but they differed with him in opinion.[6] These articles, for very obvious reasons, were not communicated to the Count de Vergennes. Mr Oswald did not receive any opinion from his Court relating to our articles until the 23d of October, when letters from the Minister informed him, that the extent of our boundaries, and the situation of the tories, &c. caused some objections, and the Minister's Secretary was on the way here to confer with us on those subjects.