post located on the main highway from the interior part

of the country to the Gulf. Of the approximate population of four thousand, a fair proportion were English

44

Royalists who had poured into West Florida when it was a 45 British province from 1764 to 1781. After the Span

ish Conquest, the Spanish subjects were attracted to the With the westward migration, another

Natchez district.

the contrary, maintained that the Blount scheme had no con

44. Amer. State Papers, For. Rel. II, p. 20.

45. Wilbur H. Siebert, "The Loyalists in West Florida and the Natchez District, in Proceedings of Mississippi Valley Historical Association, VIII (1914), p. 102; Cox, p. 21.

46. Cox, pp. 22, 23.

The same

The Americans were well received by the Spanish who thought that the people would be loyal to Spain, and would aid in the formation of a buffer colony. mistaken idea was held by Miro who invited settlement of the Americans by offering attractive inducements, land grants, religious liberty, etc.

nection with the project of invasion from Canada which Yrujo had feared. "It is wonderful, sir", Pickering declared, "that you should attempt to make it believed that Mr. Blount's letter and the late detected conspiracy had any connection with the expedition which you suggested was preparing on the Lakes of Canada, against Upper Louisiana. All that is yet discovered of Mr. Blount's project or conspiracy proves that it was to have been formed in one of the States south of the river Ohio; and that it was destined against the Floridas, and perhaps Lower Lou147

isiana.

In June, Yrujo sent a long dispatch to the United States Government concerning affairs in the Yazoo region. He denounced the conduct of Ellicott at Natchez, who, immediately upon his arrival wounded the feelings of the Spanish Commander, by hoisting the American flag on a territory which would not belong to the United States until the astronomical observations had been made. Yrujo stressed the great personal resentment between Gayoso and Ellicott, and forwarded Carondelet's request that the Unit

47. Annals of Congress, 5th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 3211. (Pickering was mistaken. Collot's report to Yrujo in April concerned the Chisholm plan. See Collot's communications to Yrujo, in Doc. on the Blount Conspiracy.)