They did not, however, despair of keeping them at bay.

The victories won by Galvez over both the British regulars and the Tory American settlers were fresh in their minds; and they felt they had a chance of success even in a contest of arms.

But the weapons upon which they relied most were craft and intrigue.

If the Union could be broken up, or the jealousies between the States and sections fanned into flame, there would be little chance of a successful aggressive movement by the Americans of any one commonwealth.
The Spanish authorities sought to achieve these ends by every species of bribery and corrupt diplomacy.

They placed even more reliance upon the war-like confederacies of the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, thrust in between themselves and the frontier settlements; and while protesting to the Americans with smooth treachery that they were striving to keep the Indians at peace, they secretly incited them to hostilities, and furnished them with arms and munitions of war.