No. 734.
Mr. Hall to Mr. Fish.
Havana, November 22, 1873. (Received December 3.)
Sir: With reference to your No. 204 and telegram of the 12th instant, instructing me to demand of the authorities the most ample rights secured by treaty or the law of nations for all Americans on the Virginius, I have to state, in reply, that upon the receipt of the telegram I called personally upon the superior political governor and read the same to him. He answered me in civil terms, much in the tenor of his two communications upon the same subject, referred to in my Nos. 298 and 304, and substantially that the consular prerogatives, being of a mere commercial character, did not authorize me to address him upon subjects of the nature referred to; that he had acquainted his own government with all the facts that had come to his knowledge respecting the Virginius, and that from the representatives of the United States in Spain and of Spain in the United States my Government would be made acquainted with all such facts.
I have, &c,