ough a Frenchman who came to the Spanish agents at Philadelphia;
[Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Alcudia, March
20, 1794.] and when the army began to gather they received from time to
time from their agents in Kentucky reports which, though exaggerated,
gave them a fairly accurate view of what was happening. No overt act of
hostility was committed by Clark's people, except by some of those who
started to join him from the Cumberland district, under the lead of a
man named Montgomery. These men built a wooden fort at the mouth of the
Cumberland River, and held the boats that passed to trade with Spain;
one of the boats that they took being a scow loaded with flour and
biscuit sent up stream by the Spanish Government itself.

Good Conduct of the United States Government.

When Wayne heard of the founding of this fort he acted with his usual
promptness, and sent an expedition which broke it up and released the
various boats. Then, to stop any repetition of the offence, and more
effectually to curb the overbearing truculence of the frontiersmen, he
himself built, as already mentioned, a fort at Massac, not far from the
Mississippi. All this of course was done in the interests of the
Spaniards themselves and in accordance with the earnest desire of the
United States authorities to prevent any unlawful attack on Louisiana;
yet Carondelet actually sent word to Gayoso de Lemos, the Governor of
Natchez and the upper part of the river, to persuade the Chickasaws
secretly to attack this fort and destroy it.

Ingratitude of the Spaniards.

Carondelet always had an exaggerated idea of the warlike capacity of the
Indian nations, and never understood the power of the Americans, nor
appreciated the desire of their Government to act in good faith. Gayoso
was in this respect a much more intelligent man, and he positively
refused to carry out the orders of his superior, remonstrating directly
to the Court of Spain, by which he was sustained. He pointed out that
the destruction of the fort would merely encourage the worst enemies of
the Spaniards, even if accomplished; and he further pointed out that it
was quite impossible to destroy it; for he understood fully the
difference between a fort garrisoned by Wayne's regulars and one held by
a mob of buccaneering militia. [Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish
Documents, Manuel Gayoso de Lemos to the Duke de Alcudia, Natchez, Sept.
19, 1794.]

Gayoso and Caro