easy-going Spaniard had held the mouth of the river, placing severe
restrictions upon foreign traders, but too indolent to enforce them.

Great Britain and the United States had ignored Spain when they declared
in the treaty of peace that the Mississippi, from its source to the
Gulf, should remain for ever free and open to citizens of both
countries. Perhaps because she was disappointed in not getting a portion
of the middle valley away from the Americans in the course of the peace
negotiations, Spain soon began to show that she was at least mistress
of the lower part of the river. Just where her dominion began was
uncertain. During the war, a Virginia captain raised his colours on
the Mississippi a few miles above Natchez. A Spanish commandant buried
a box near the same spot with the colours of his sovereign as a token
of possession. After 1783, the flatboatmen, who adventured down the
river with loads of tobacco, flour, or planks, seeking a market at New
Orleans or adjacent settlements, found at the Walnut Bluffs, about ten
miles below the mouth of the Yazoo River, a post of Spanish customs
guards. These bade them lower their flag and put themselves under the
protection of the governor of Natchez before proceeding. If the goods
escaped paying a duty at this place, they were examined a second time
when they reached the group of about one hundred houses, crowning the
bluff, which constituted the city of Natchez. On a prominent point,
commanding a view of the river for many miles, stood the governor's
palace and the fort, at which were usually stationed about a score of
Spanish troops.

The hardy frontiersmen, who escaped the perils of navigating the river
as far as Natchez, bore the inspection and frequent seizure of their
goods as a great hardship and unwarrantable action. Scarcely had trade
opened after the war before Congress received a complaint from one