Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 6, 1875, Volume II

No. 580.
Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish.

Legation of the United States,
Madrid, November 25, 1874. (Received December 18.)

No. 156.]

Sir: I inclose herewith translation and copy of the original of a note from the minister of state, marked “private,” under date of November 24, 1874, and received this day, expressing the resolution of the Spanish government to make indemnity in behalf of citizens of the United States executed at Santiago de Cuba, on the same basis as in the case of the subjects of Great Britain, with proviso of previous explanation on some points of difference$ and, in the absence of agreement in that respect, then at once to recur to arbitration.

It is the note of which the material parts were this day transmitted to you by telegraph.

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I am, &c.,

C. CUSHING.

[Inclosure 1 in No. 156.]

Mr. Ulloa to Mr. Cushing.

[Private.—Translation.]

Ministry of State, November 24, 1874.

My Esteemed Friend:

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I must, therefore, repeat to you that the Spanish government has been from the first disposed to concede to the United States an indemnification in every respect similar in its signification and in its limits to that which it has granted for the execution of the English subjects, provided that stipulation be made, as has been with England, respecting the character of this resolution, and that beforehand shall be fixed and determined the several points which, in the affair of the Virginius, establish for Spain, with respect to the American Republic, different rights from those which exist in this matter with regard to England. Those rights which are clearly derivable from the acts and declarations of the Government of Washington itself being determined, Spain will take satisfaction in proceeding with the United States as it has acted with England; and it gives me pleasure to make this known from now henceforth, being also able to confide to your nobleness and discretion that, all the eventualities which may present themselves to our rectitude being foreseen as they are in the protocol of November, 1873, Spain will not in any contingency depart from that which is stipulated in the said protocol, or expressing myself in other terms, that in the improbable event of not arriving at a direct accommodation, we will have recourse to the arbitration stipulated in that document.

I believe that in these lines I have fully demonstrated to how high a point the Spanish government carries its conciliatory sentiments, and its desires to maintain with that of President Grant a worthy and cordial understanding founded in reciprocal esteem.

Within a very short time I will explain these indications, to which I have not before given an official form owing to the necessity of asking from Cuba reports and data, which I now fortunately possess complete.

I have, meanwhile, wished to anticipate to your clear intelligence a confirmation of our resolution, and to improve an occasion, as satisfactory as all have been, to again subscribe myself with the greatest consideration, your attentive and obedient servant, (Q.B.S.M.,)

AUGUSTO ULLOA.

His Excellency Mr. Caleb Cushing,
Minister of the United States.