There were plenty of American settlers around Natchez, who were naturally friendly to the American Government; and an agent from the State of Georgia, to the horror of the Spaniards, came out to the country with the especial purpose of looking over the Yazoo lands, at the time when Georgia was about to grant them to the various land companies.

What with the land speculators, the frontiersmen, and the Federal troops, the situation grew steadily more harassing for the Spaniards; and Carondolet kept the advisors of the Spanish Crown well informed of the growing stress.
The Separatists Play into the Hands of the Spaniards.
The Spanish Government knew it would be beaten if the issue once came to open war, and, true to the instincts of a weak and corrupt power, it chose as its weapons delay, treachery, and intrigue.

To individual Americans the Spaniards often behaved with arrogance and brutality; but they feared to give too serious offence to the American people as a whole.

Like all other enemies of the American Republic, from the days of the Revolution to those of the Civil War, they saw clearly that their best allies were the separatists, the disunionists, and they sought to encourage in every way the party which, in a spirit of sectionalism, wished to bring about a secession of one part of the country and the erection of a separate government.

The secessionists then, as always, played into the hands of the men who wished the new republic ill.