The Spaniards sought to placate the Kentuckians by promising to reduce the duties on the goods that came down stream to New Orleans by six per cent., and thus to prevent an outbreak on their part; at the same time the United States Government was kept occupied by idle negotiations.

Carondelet further hoped to restrain the Cumberland people by fear of the Creek and Cherokee nations, who, he remarked, "had never ceased to commit hostilities upon them and to profess implacable hatred for them." [Footnote: Carondelet to De Lemos, Aug.

15, 1793.] He reported to the Spanish Court that Spain had no means of molesting the Americans save through the Indians, as it would not be possible with an army to make a serious impression on the "ferocious and well-armed" frontier people, favored as they would be by their knowledge of the country; whereas the Indians, if properly supported, offered an excellent defence, supplying from the Southwestern tribes fifteen thousand warriors, whose keep in time of peace cost Spain not more than fifty thousand dollars a year, and even in time of war not more than a hundred and fifty thousand.
[Footnote: Carondelet to Alcudia, Sept.

27, 1793.] He Continually Incites the Indians to War.
The Spaniards in this manner actively fomented hostilities among the Creeks and Cherokees.

Their support explained much in the attitude of these peoples, but doubtless the war would have gone on anyhow until the savages were thoroughly cowed by force of arms.