The last clause of the third article, making the privilege of landing anywhere on the coast subject to the restrictions contained in the following articles, was not in the draft _without_ a demarkation of limits which was made the basis of the treaty, but it was in the draft _with_ a demarkation of limits. Fitzherbert compromised on this point and combined the two drafts. He admitted a limitation of the privilege without obtaining a definite demarkation of the boundaries of Spanish exclusive sovereignty. If Floridablanca had not secured this concession, it would have meant that the English could have landed and established colonies in any unoccupied spot on the coast of California, Mexico, Central or South America. This concession was not included in the draft which was examined by the special junta. It was on this point that they so violently opposed conceding the English demands and advised war at all hazards instead.
In the fourth article, regarding the limit of 10 leagues within which English vessels should not approach Spanish establishments, Floridablanca pressed very earnestly for extending the distance to 15 leagues. As a precedent for his contention, he cited the treaty of 1763 between England and France, which fixed 15 leagues as the distance within which French fishermen might not approach the coasts of Cape Breton. He suggested the insertion of the words “in the said seas,” which would confine this restriction to the Pacific. Fitzherbert embodied the last mentioned suggestion, since he conceived that it might be of advantage to the English fisheries on the Atlantic coasts of Spanish America, but he would not admit the extension to 15 leagues. His private instructions, as mentioned in the last chapter, had named 5 leagues as the distance to be first proposed, but had allowed him to concede 8 or even 10.
The fifth and sixth articles contained the stipulations upon which there was the most difficulty in agreeing. In the course of their discussion the negotiation was frequently on the point of being broken off. Floridablanca would not consent to a convention that failed to secure to Spain her exclusive intercourse with her establishments. Neither would he consent to fix any precise line as the boundary of the Spanish possessions, either on the north or the south. He pleaded insufficient information. Fitzherbert wrote to the British Cabinet that the language of the Spanish minister on both of these points was so firm and decisive as to make it evident beyond a doubt that the alternative of peace or war rested on finding or not finding a solution of these difficulties. Neither of the two drafts of the English ultimatum afforded a solution. The one provided that the subjects of the two Crowns should have free access to all unoccupied places and to all establishments formed since April, 1789, or to be formed north of a fixed line on the Northwest Coast and south of a fixed line on the South American coast. The other, omitting any reference to fixed limits, provided that this privilege should extend to the whole Pacific coast of North and South America.