The Governor, Salcedo--who had succeeded Gayoso, when the latter died of yellow fever, complicated by a drinking-bout with Wilkinson--was not in sympathy with the movement; but this mattered little.

Under the cumbrous Spanish colonial system, the Governor, though he disapproved of the actions of the Intendant, could not reverse them, and Morales paid no heed to the angry protests of the Spanish Minister at Washington, who saw that the Americans were certain in the end to fight rather than to lose the only outlet for the commerce of the West.

[Footnote: Gayarre, III., 576.

The King of Spain, at the instigation of Godoy, disapproved the order of Morales, but so late that the news of the disapproval reached Louisiana only as the French were about to take possession.

However, the reversal of the order rendered the course of the further negotiations easier.] It seems probable that the Intendant's action was due to the fact that he deemed the days of Spanish dominion numbered, and, in his jealousy of the Americans, wished to place the new French authorities in the strongest possible position; but the act was not done with the knowledge of France.
Anger of the Westerners.
Of this, however, the Westerners were ignorant.