That great river was controlled by the Spaniards seated at its mouth, who, in traditions, race, and aspirations, had no affinity with the people of the new republic. They sat there as a barrier between the settlers and the sea; and even before Washington left his home on the Potomac, conflicting rumors had reached him respecting the impatience of the western settlers because of that barrier. They had urged the Congress of the Confederation to open it by treaty, but that Congress was too feeble to comply. Now one tongue of rumor said that they would soon organize an expedition to capture New Orleans; another tongue asserted that the Spaniards, aided by British emissaries, were intriguing with leading men in the great valleys to effect a separation of the Union, and an attachment of the western portion to the crown of Spain. These things gave Washington and his co-workers great uneasiness.
Another cause for anxiety was the refusal of Great Britain to give up some of the frontier forts, in compliance with an article of the definitive treaty of peace of 1783, on the plea that the United States had violated another article of the same treaty in allowing the debts due to British subjects, which had been contracted before the war, to remain unpaid. This was regarded by the Americans as a mere pretext to cover a more important interest, namely, the monopoly of the fur-trade with the Indians. It was alleged, also, that the hostile attitude toward the United States then lately assumed by several of the western tribes was caused by the mischievous influence of the British officers who held those posts, and their emissaries among the savages.
At the same time, the finances of the country were in a most deplorable state. A heavy domestic and foreign debt presented importunate creditors at the door of government; the treasury was empty; public credit was utterly prostrated, and every effort of the late government to fund the public debt had failed.
The foreign commerce of the country, owing to the feebleness of the Confederation, was in a most unsatisfactory condition. The conduct of the British government in relation to trade with the United States had been, since the conclusion of the war, not only ungenerous, but insolent and oppressive; and at the same time, the corsairs of the Barbary powers on the southern shores of the Mediterranean sea, whose princes were fattening upon the spoils of piracy, were marauding upon American merchant-vessels with impunity, and carrying the crews into slavery.