1. On Sullivan’s letter datelined “State of Georgia, Frontier of the Creek Nation, 1st of March, 1787”, see Gardoqui to JJ, 28 Aug. 1787, LS, in Spanish with translation, and with a copy of Sullivan’s letter from the Columbian Herald (Charleston, S.C.), 6 Aug., DNA: PCC, item 97, 194–200 (EJ: 3648); LbkCs, in Spanish with translation, with copy of Sullivan’s letter, DNA: Domestic Letters description begins Domestic Letters of the Department of State, 1784–1906, RG59, item 120, National Archives (M40). Accessed on Fold3.com. description ends , 3: 271–79 (EJ: 2168); DNA: PCC, item 125, 143–49 (EJ: 3730); NNC: JJ Lbk. 7. The caption above Sullivan’s letter in the Columbian Herald stated that it had first been published in the Morning Post the previous Monday, and was being republished from an original copy in the author’s own handwriting. The letter also appeared in the Independent Gazetteer (Philadelphia), the New-York Packet, and the Daily Advertiser (New York) on 17 Aug; in the Independent Journal (New York), on 18 Aug.; in the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser on 21 Aug.; in the Country Journal (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.) on 22 Aug.; and in the New-York Journal on 23 Aug., in which a preface to the letter declared that Sullivan “returned from the state of Franklin to Charleston, in July last, where he contracted for all the powder and lead in that city.” It was subsequently reprinted in various New England newspapers.

As noted in both his letter and Gardoqui’s, Sullivan had appealed to Gardoqui unsuccessfully for a position in the Spanish army. He was now announcing in florid language his intention to join the American veterans pouring into the lands along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers who were prepared to defend their “commercial Rights” to navigate the rivers to the sea, regardless of any artificial barriers placed in their way. When the inevitable conflict erupted, they would not solicit the permission of Congress, in which the people were not represented. “The Americans,” he proclaimed, “are amphibious animals. They cannot be confined to the Land alone. Tillage and Commerce are their Elements: Both, or neither will they enjoy. Both they will have, or perish.” For an earlier incident involving American veterans engaging in unauthorized attacks on Spanish property, see Report on George Rogers Clark’s Seizure of Spanish Property, 12 Apr. 1787, above.

2. Sullivan, an Irishman with French citizenship, was a captain in the Fourth Continental Dragoons, also known as Moylan’s Light Dragoons. The unit had served in the southern theater from 1780 to 1783. It returned to Pennsylvania from Charleston, S. C., in May 1783. Sullivan then assumed a leading role in the Philadelphia Mutiny of June 1783. When the mutiny collapsed, Sullivan and a co-conspirator fled to Europe. When he returned to the United States has not been determined. On the Philadelphia Mutiny and Sullivan’s role in it, see PRM, description begins E. James Ferguson et al., eds., The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784 (9 vols.; Pittsburgh, Pa., 1973–99) description ends 8: 215–238; LDC, description begins Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters of Delegates to the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (26 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1976–98) description ends 20: 404–5n.

3. For the Secretary of War’s report of 12 Oct. 1787, directing the seizure of Sullivan if he entered federal territory along the Ohio River, see JCC, description begins Worthington C. Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1904–37) description ends 33: 675–76.