igorous measures.

Accordingly, in 1794, after Genet had been dismissed, Washington sent
Thomas Pinckney, who for some years had been minister in London, on
a special treaty-making mission to Madrid. The first results were
vexatious and unpromising enough, and Pinckney wrote at the outset
that he had had two interviews with the Duke de Alcudia, but to no
purpose. It was the old game of delay, he said, with inquiries as to
why we had not replied to propositions, which in fact never had been
made. Even what Pinckney wrote, unsatisfactory as it was, could not be
wholly made out, for some passages were in a cipher to which the State
Department had no key. Washington wrote to Pickering, then acting as
Secretary of State: "A kind of fatality seems to have pursued this
negotiation, and, in short, all our concerns with Spain, from the
appointment of Mr. Carmichael, under the new government, as minister
to that country, to the present day.... Enough, however, appears
already to show the temper and policy of the Spanish court, and its
undignified conduct as it respects themselves, and insulting as it
relates to us; and I fear it will prove that the late treaty of peace
with France portends nothing favorable to these United States."
Washington's patience had been sorely tried by the delays and shifty
evasions of Spain, but he was now on the brink of success, just as he
concluded that negotiation was hopeless.

He had made a good choice in Thomas Pinckney, better even than he
knew. Triumphing over all obstacles, with persistence, boldness, and
good management, Pinckney made a treaty and brought it home with him.
Still more remarkable was the fact that it was an extremely good
treaty, and conceded all we asked. By it the Florida boundary was
settled, and the free navigation of the Mississippi was obtained. We
also gained the right to a place of deposit at New Orleans, a pledge
to leave the Indians alone, a commercial agreement modeled on that
with France, and a board of arbitration to settle American claims.
All this Pinckney obtained, not as the representative of a great and
powerful state, but as the envoy of a new nation, distant, unknown,
disliked, and embroiled in various complications with other powers.
Our history can show very few diplomatic achievements to be compared
with this, for it was brilliant in execution, and complete and
valuable in result. Yet it has passed into history almost unnoticed,
and both the treaty and