Governor Carondelet, at New Orleans, received orders from the home government to deliver the posts on the Mississippi, but refused to do so, as he feared that the English were about to move against New Orleans from the north. In the summer of 1796 he finally received orders to hold the posts, but later was again ordered by the home government to deliver them.[58] Efforts were made by agents of France and Spain to induce the people of the western country to separate from the Union, and form, in conjunction with Franch and Spain an independent government in the Mississippi Valley.[59] The inhabitants of Kentucky and Tennessee, jealous of their rights, ant not satisfied with the efforts of Congress to procure them redress, seemed strongly disposed to take justice into their own hands. There appear to have been no less than five parties among them at this time. The discord between these parties was fanned by the English, Spanish, and French, according to their respective views. The Spanish Treaty went into quiet effect in 1798.[60] New Orleans was not then, a large commercial city, but merely a small town without capital or enterprise, and reputed to be so fatally unhealthy, that its future growth was considered as entirely improbable.[61] Ascent of the Mississippi, by means of the boats then in use was a slow and most laborious process. Illinois received her goods from Michilmackinack; Kentucky, Tennessee, and the North West Territory, from Philadelphia or Baltimore, on account of the want of storehouses well and regularly furnished at New Orleans.[62] Conveyance of goods from Philadelphia to Illinois required fifty-five to sixty days; from New Orleans seventy to seventy-five days; the expense of carriage being twelve piastres the hundred weight by way of Philadelphia or Baltimore, and five piastres by way of New Orleans.[63] So long as the importation of goods was attended with so much difficulty and expense, and the western country was forced to depend upon the Atlantic States for their supply of European manufactures, the balance of trade was against them.[64]