However, there was one point on which the more far-seeing of these critics were right.

They urged that it would be better for the country not to try to sell the public land speedily in large tracts, but to grant it to actual settlers in such quantity as they could use.
[Footnote: St.Clair to Jay, Dec.

13, 1788.] Failure of These Colonization Schemes.
The different propositions to settle large colonies in the Spanish possessions came to naught, although quite a number of backwoodsmen settled there individually or in small bands.

One great obstacle to the success of any such movement was the religious intolerance of the Spaniards.

Not only were they bigoted adherents of the Church of Rome, but their ecclesiastical authorities were cautioned to exercise over all laymen a supervision and control to which the few Catholics among the American backwoodsmen would have objected quite as strenuously as the Protestants.