Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

From the National Intelligencer, August 4.

THE SPANISH TREATY.

Our readers will have seen, by the time they read this, that, by the latest and most authentic accounts, the Treaty with Spain had not been ratified on the 22d of June.

We are not among those who attach great importance to this negative information.

Still less do we believe, that Spain intends or desires to provoke a rupture with this country. There is no motive which could influence her to do so. That she has seen with mortification, privateers swarming from our ports and preying on her defenceless commerce, there can be little doubt; but she has also seen that the government of the U. States, sensible of the enormity of such unlicensed robbery, has used its exertions to put a stop to it, and is therefore guiltless of having encouraged such practices. She has seen, too, that the people of this country, had the government displayed the same inclination, have been well enough disposed to have wrested the Floridas from Spain, by a weapon very different from negociation, and to have taken ample indemnity in Mexico, as well as Florida, for Spanish spoliations on our commerce. But the alternative of war with Spain has been cautiously and sedulously avoided; & a treaty has been framed, in conformity to her minister's instructions, quite as favorable to Spain as she could have expected. That treaty, under such circumstances, it is scarcely possible she will not ratify.

If, after this view of the subject, people will anticipate an ultimate refusal to ratify the treaty, let the fact of the promotion of Don Luis de Onis speak for itself. It is not to be supposed that the king of Spain would elevate, to the highest office and honors in his gift, a man who had just returned from a foreign mission, which had resulted in a treaty so odious, that the sovereign intended to reject it.

That a few courtiers about the person of the king, interested in large grants of land in Florida, of a date too late to be recognized by the treaty, will exert themselves to defeat its ratification, is quite probable. We trust they will utterly fail: we hope it, as we deprecate war, which, we believe, would sooner or later, be the inevitable consequence of a breach of faith in this instance on the part of Spain.

The time limited by the treaty, within which, on ratification, it shall peremptorily bind both parties, is currently reported to be six months; which term will expire about the 24th of this month. If not ratified before that day, the government of the United States, on its part, ceases to be bound by it.

It is proper to state, that the private letters received in this city from Madrid, give no reason to suppose that the treaty will not be duly ratified.