These men did not worry much over the fact that the country on the farther bank of the Mississippi was still under the Spanish Flag.

For the moment they did not need it, and when they did, they knew they could take it without the smallest difficulty.

But the ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi was a matter of immediate importance; and though none of the settlers doubted that it would ultimately be theirs, it was yet a matter of much consequence to them to get possession of it as quickly as possible, and with as little trouble as possible, rather than to see it held, perhaps for years, by a powerful hostile nation, and then to see it acquired only at the cost of bloody, and perchance checkered, warfare.
Terror of the Spaniards.
This was the attitude of the backwoods people as with sinewy, strenuous shoulder they pressed against the Spanish boundaries.

The Spanish attitude on the other hand was one of apprehension so intense that it overcame even anger against the American nation.

For mere diplomacy, the Spaniards cared little or nothing; but they feared the Westerners.