The Governor of Natchez, De Lemos, had already established a fort at the Chickasaw Bluffs, where there was danger of armed collision between the Spaniards and either the Cumberland settlers under Robertson or the Federal troops.

Among the latter, by the way, the officer for whose ability the Spaniards seemed to feel an especial respect was Lieutenant William Clark.

[Footnote: Draper MSS., Spanish Documents, Carondelet to Don Louis de Las Casas, June 13, 1795; De Lemos to Carondelet, July 25, 1793.] The Chickasaws Befriend the Americans.
The Chickasaws were nearly drawn into a war with the Spaniards, who were intensely irritated over their antagonism to the Creeks, for which the Spaniards insisted that the Americans were responsible.

[Footnote: American State Papers, Foreign Relations, I., p.

305, etc.] The Americans, however, were able to prove conclusively that the struggle was due, not to their advice, but to the outrages of marauders from the villages of the Muscogee confederacy.